Perkins In Costa Rica

End of classes, end of service, video

2009-11-29T15:04:00.003-06:00

Above is a video project I did with my second graders (or at least the ones who came to class) as a way to show everyone, including the 2010 volunteer, around town.

(There was more actual update here, but then everything crashed and it got deleted. Such is technology down here. I'll try to update it more this week.)

Winding down

2009-10-24T21:33:00.003-06:00

If I were to choose one sound to describe the last month, it would probably be ¨mehhhh,¨ or any similar sound that signifies a mix of indifference and laziness. October is usually the rainy month in Costa Rica, and by rainy, I mean the hardest rain you´ve ever seen, every day. Since the country is basically subjected to Noah-level rains for thirty days, I´m pretty sure they adjust their schedules to have as little work as possible in the month of October. This year however, as I´ve been told by the Ticos, is different. A mix of global warming and the El Niño climate phenomenon (which, for those of you who don´t habla español, means... the niño) has caused October to be relatively mild. It still is raining a good majority of the days, but it hasn´t been of the usual torrential variety. The problem is, nobody knew this would happen when they made the schedule, so our school has basically been a joke over the past four weeks. I usually have a four day work week. The past four weeks: 2 days, 2 days, 3 days, 0 days. While such a schedule looks awesome, I long ago became vacationed-out, especially when I have a lot more material I want to cover with the end of classes coming up in about a month. This upcoming week is finally looking to be a full one, but exams are coming up, which invariably means that at least some of my classes will be cancelled.
I took a good chunk of my free week to head to Bocas del Toro, Panama. Bocas is a set of islands just over the border that is a prime stop on the ¨Gringo Trail,¨ or the key vacation spots for the 20 to 30 year old backpackers who make their way through Central America. I needed to leave Costa Rica for three days to get an extension on my visa, as it expires on December 31st and my flight home isn´t until January 5th. Just in case you´re wondering, it´s reallllly easy to border hop, but considering that the official border is a sketchy old train bridge with dozens of ways to fall to your death to the river below, why would you ever want to do such a thing? I´m now back in Costa Rica, completely over-ready (is that a word?) to head back to Boruca, eat nothing but rice and beans, speak Spanish, take cold showers, and chase chickens out of my classroom.
Messages and e-mails are always appreciated, especially at this late point in the year! Until next time...

Mmmm pictures

2009-10-04T08:58:00.006-06:00

There's been a lot going on in the past twenty or so days since I've updated. Unfortunately, as some might have heard, the internet has basically stopped working in Boruca. Every once in a while, there'll be a good enough connection to load up and read a few e-mails, but almost never enough to actually send anything back or be online for more than a minute at a time. At this point in the year, though, I'm pretty much over my American internet ways, and the couple of minutes every few days is good enough. (This does not apply to weekends away at places with wireless internet, where I go crazy downloading anything that will entertain me for the following two weeks.)
As far as school news goes, we've just started up a school project to improve basically anything we can think of. I can usually follow these meetings but not chime in too much, but this time the teachers took the time to ask me what I though could be done better. I'm not about to use this space to rail against the educational practices of Costa Rica, so let's just say that I gave them a few pointers on how I would run things differently. Within an hour or so, we had eight points to improve upon - including the schedule, types of instruction in the classroom, communication with parents, use of technology and the new library, and ways to promote more reading and creative writing. Each task was split up between the teachers, and I helped (/pretty much did everything) on most of the projects. I had the schedule to myself, and came up with one for next year that gives the kids more consistent hours at the school, English class every day, a space in the day for extra help/projects/acto civicos, and ends the day for most teachers almost two hours earlier. (And don't worry, I didn't take away any of the kids' recreos) Since most of the ideas that I shared are pretty much foreign to Costa Rican education, I probably have a ton of work ahead of me to get this all going... but the teachers and my director were pretty excited about it, so it's a good start.
I mentioned in my last post that Independence Day was coming up. We had two days off of school, the 14th and 15th, in order to celebrate. The 14th is dedicated to lighting a torch in a nearby community, having the kids run up and down the mountains in 95 degree weather to deliver said torch to another community, then having the directors advise the kids that the best way to rehydrate is to drink coffee. This was a fun time. We even set my "most people in a pickup truck" record for the year, when we fit in 25 students and staff in order to drive to Bella Vista, our neighboring town. The night of the 14th was dance presentation/lamp contest/parade with the lamps lit up. If you're wondering if overzealous parents exist in Costa Rica, your answer is 'yes.' There were definitely some 4 year olds in the lamp contest with lamps made of intricately carved balsa wood.
The 15th is the actual independence day, and we celbrated with a big parade that made a loop through the town. This parade definitely had the lowest spectator/participant ratio in the history of parades, but the kids still loved it. I was at the front with my group of flag-bearers, but I still managed to take about 200 pictures. Here are some favs:
Alannis is ready with the torch.

Yup. No way she made that.

Kid stole my sunglasses. (This is the same kid who once scratched me, looking to uncover my browner, non-white skin. We're buds.)
The two dance teams from the colegio battle it out in an epic "Worst Outfit Ever" contest.

The rest of October is a bit of a joke as far as actual school goes. October is traditionally the month where it pours down rain Noah-style, so I think they schedule a ton of meetings and days off to avoid the double whammy of working in what amounts to a monsoon. In any event, we have two days off this week, the following Monday off, and then three days off two weeks after that. I need to get an extension on my time in Costa Rica to stay for New Years, so I'll be heading to Panama or Nicaragua for one of those trips.
About time to check out of the room and head to the beach one last time. We're hoping to catch the Pats game (or any football) before we head back to the pueblos again. Until next time...

Semana Civica

2009-09-13T10:01:00.006-06:00

It's been quite a while since my last post, so I figured I check in. I've been busy, but as second trimester just came to an end, it's been mostly grade-related.
Independence Day is coming up this Tuesday (the 15th), so there's been a ton of preparation for that. Last week was devoted to cramming as many school assemblies as possible into five days, celebrating everything from the abolition of the army and death penalty, Costa Rica's first astronaut, and something that involved a life sized drawing of Pope John Paul II:

I would have gone with one of him skiing with the sick child on his shoulders, but that's just me. Anyways, I was in charge of the assembly about the abolition of the army, which involved me reading some info I found on the internet, most of which I didn't understand. This also happened to be the day that the guy from Boruca's radio station came to the school with equipment to broadcast the assembly to the rest of the village, since apparently listening to Americans stumble over four paragraphs of Costa Rican history is a popular radio format here.
There's a large parade to go with the Independence Day celebration, and somehow I was named a coach for the school's flag-bearers/marchers. Think of them as a less precise color guard. How I got this job is beyond me, as I have no experience with that sort of thing. Also, I can barely walk in a straight line without tripping over something. But I do have patience and a loud voice, so for a week after school I had 7-10 kids marching around the cement plot in the back of the school. I even changed some of the instructions to English when they fit into the beat of the march better than the longer Spanish words. Pablo, my first grader, has a habit of continuing to march along after I've called for a stop, either oblivious to the command or just really happy to be marching. Anyway, we'll see how it turns out, but I'm not too worried. The fact that 90% of the town is actually in the parade leads me to believe that if we do mess up, not that many people will notice.
Some other pictures from the week:
Some of my first grade boys: Jafet, Quehat, and Stiven left to right. (I've noticed that most of the girls here refuse to pose for a picture without their hands over their face.) Jafet is probably my smartest first-grader, and he recently saw the video to Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" for the first time. He is now obsessed with the dance move where Jackson leans almost all the way forward, so about five times a day he asks me to sing the song and hold his arms as he leans forward. After a week he has yet to become sick of this, so I've taken to calling him Jafet Jackson.
Since I am 24 going on 9, I use most of my free time playing jokes on other teachers. This one, for example, started about a month ago when I made fun of the first grade teacher's drawing of a tiny man on a huge horse. While she was out drinking coffee during recess, I recreated/slightly exaggerated the drawing on her board, and left the question of whether it was a large horse or a small man. To her credit, she later responded by writing that the horse was just a large Teacher.
The pre-school girls have apparently not developed the sense of shyness yet. I usually don't teach preschool or kindergarden, but the preschool kids asked for a class with Maestro Teacher a couple of weeks back. We read a book about baby animals and learned some various simple verbs, which was basically an excuse for them to act out things like running, jumping, swimming, and stabbing. OK, that last one wasn't true.
And this one, just because it's the closest thing to a good photograph I took all week.
At least the first two days of classes this week are cancelled for the celebrations, which means that Wednesday probably will be too. There's a whole group of volunteers heading to Manuel Antonio to take a TEFL course (which I decided against because I'm an attendance fiend with my kids, so I couldn't justify taking two weeks off myself), but I'll be heading there next weekend to celebrate two of the vols' birthdays.
Internet hasn't really been working at my site over the past two weeks, but thanks to those who are still sending along messages. Talk to everyone soon.

The computer is... what?!

2009-08-23T10:26:00.004-06:00

I'm back in Buenos Aires for the second straight day. My laptop has a virus and the plan was to see if the computer shop could do anything about it. Unfortunately, after the two hour bus ride down, and waiting another hour for the place to open up, I found out that on Sundays only the internet cafe is open, not the shop. Oh well.
With time to spare, I figure I'd do another quick blog update. Seeing how part of my update yesterday was highlighting some funny 'English-is-a-long-process' moments from my class, it's only fair that I share one of my weaker moments in Spanish:

Since the English Laptop has been up and running, there's usually a mob of students racing to my room as recreo starts to ask if they can use it. The usual drill is to pretend I have no idea what they're talking about until they ask me in English, at which point it's all theres. My classroom only has one working wall outlet, and since my personal laptop (the cheapest computer I could find after my old one died in September 2007, and I needed one for school the next day)has the battery life of early-90's Sony Discman, the English Laptop usually runs just on battery. Last week, I had forgotten to give the English Laptop a charge during lunch, and the battery gave out right as recreo was starting. As the kids came rushing in, I wanted to let them know that they had to wait a few minutes, since the computer was charging... or, "el computadora esta cargando" in Spanish.
That's what I meant to say.
What I actually said was "El computadora esta cagando," which, despite the absence of just one little 'r,' means a very different thing. Since I strive to keep this blog family-friendly, you can have some fun with Google Translator finding out the difference between:
"El computadora esta cargando."
and
"El computadora esta cagando."

Needless to say, the group of fourth graders thought this was the best thing in the world. I now know not to let that 'r' drop, despite my Boston roots.
Time will tell if my computer makes it through the week with this virus, but send along some e-mail or whatever anyways!

Chickens

2009-08-22T09:21:00.003-06:00

This is my second straight weekend (and third in the past four) that I’ve kept a low profile and mostly stayed in Boruca. I’ve headed down to Buenos Aires for the morning to use the internet, hit up the ATM, and attempt to find the restaurant that a teacher at the school told me about that apparently serves “really good” pizza. What constitutes such a rating in Costa Rica, especially in a dusty, cultural wasteland like Buenos Aires, remains to be seen. I’m half-expecting a slice of white bread with ketchup, cheese, and a side of rice.

For all the crap I give Buenos Aires, it’s not the worst place in the world to spend five hours after a week in Boruca. The internet is about 80 cents an hour, and there’s a really good restaurant that specializes in seafood where I can get a huge plate of rice with shrimp for about $4.30. I will, however, lodge my official complaint against the ATM lines. While ATM lines in Costa Rica are always long by American standards, the fact that Buenos Aires has the only two ATM machines for 50 miles in either direction makes the situation bad. The Friday-morning lines are the worst; they easily stretch 25 feet to the street corner, take a turn, then go for another 25 feet. Easily a two-hour wait. My longest wait thus far was a 45 minute one, which was amplified by the fact that I was the only one shortsighted enough to not bring a hat or umbrella to shield me from the 90 degree heat.

Time continues to fly by in Boruca. It’s hard to believe that it’s almost September, which, as my American hard-wired brain tells me, is the official start to the ‘end’ of the year. Second trimester is winding down, and with it came another round of reviews, tests, and kids deciding to show up to class after not coming since April. (Not kidding.) My favorite in-class stories from the past week or two:

-As I was doing the daily warm-up question about the weather with my second graders, Davort, a short, toothless, usually aloof ball of ADHD remarked, “Teacher, estoy morriendo de hot.” Which was his Spanglish way of of saying, “Teacher, I am dying of hot.”

- Felix, who pulls double duty as both my craziest and smartest 6^th grader, makes constant use of the question “How do you say …. in English?” No matter what the word is, though, he immediately practices is by using it in the sentence “Teacher is …,” regardless of context or whether the word is a adjective, noun, or verb, and always leaving out ‘a.’ This week alone, we’ve had “Teacher is moonwalk,” “Teacher is scarab beetle,” and “Teacher is itch."

- And finally, in my “I am definitely teaching in a village on top of a mountain” moment of the week, comes Brandon, one of my favorite 4^th graders. We’ve been learning words that have to do with places in the village and the verbs/grammar that goes with them. Brandon was working on a worksheet with the question “What is your house near?,” with me looking for answers along the lines of “My house is near the school/store/police station.” It should be noted that Brandon can’t do anything at less than 130% speed, as evidenced by his spending recess, barefoot (as if to say that shoes and socks could never hope to contain him), simply bombing around the school and screaming, chasing what ever it is that might have his attention. When it comes to translating English, he does it with the demeanor of someone who truly believes that a bomb will go off if he doesn’t have his sentence correct in the next 30 seconds. After checking with me to make sure he understood the question, he ran back to his desk and spent a minute or so working on an answer. When he came back, I asked him, “So, Brandon, what is your house near?” He looks me dead in the eye, and, with a pause after each word to ensure he’s saying it right, tells me “My… house… is… near… chickens.” Seeing how animals weren’t part of vocabulary set (I had skipped over them entirely with fourth grade this year), I switched over to Spanish to make sure that he wasn’t confused or something. He flipped over his sheet and drew me a picture of his house, and explained how his house was on the outskirts of the village on top of a hill, not near any of the places that we had learned in class. There was, however, a spot next to his house where the chickens usually hung out. That works, I guess.

This internet cafe is roasting, so I'm off to find this magical pizza place. For those not in the know, my sister, Deborah, is due to have her first child within the next week or so! I'm wishing her the best (as should you), and it's a scant four months until I'm home to spoil Baby. Until next time...

Quick photo update

2009-08-07T10:54:00.003-06:00

I've come to San Jose for the weekend to say goodbye to the WT Summer Volunteers (who leave tomorrow) and have a going-away shindig for our Assistant Director Paul, who's heading back to the States in just over a week to start graduate school.
(The mere mention of those words frighten me. Grad school is in my future since I want to continue teaching, but sitting at a desk in a class or writing a paper is about the furthest possible thing I can think of compared to what I'm doing right now. I mean, this time yesterday I was visiting the first grade class during their lesson on the dangers of walking from their house to school: packs of stray dogs, horses, snakes, and the river.)
Nothing notable to write about at the moment, plus I have limited time to write before I head off to a (free) lunch with the summer volunteers. The highlight of my week was the Materno students (Pre-K, so about 4 years old) starting to call me "Maestro Teacher." Costa Rican students usually refer to their teachers as "Maestro" or, for example, "Maestro Carlos." I, on the other hand, am simply "Teacher," so all the Materno kids think that 'Teacher' is my actual name. So now when I visit them during snack time, I'm greeted by a chorus of "HELLO MAESTRO TEACHER!"
Here are some pictures I took on a a walk outside of town to my favorite spot along the road down the mountain. The road follows the spine of a mountain, then drops off steeply to each side with the resulting valley filled in with endless green and views of distant mountains. Pictures don't quite do it justice, but have a look anyways:

(Clouds coming over the mountains back towards Boruca. Turned to my right, in the same spot as the first photos.)

Here's a couple of photos of the new English Computer in action. If you look closely, you'll notice that I've now outlawed shoes in my room, since they just bring in mud and cause our two cleaning ladies to make fun of me for having the dirtiest floor. I've noticed that the weird lighting in my room makes it nearly impossible to get a clear photo. Such is life.)

Can't believe that it's already a week into August. September is usually when my mind starts to think that the year is coming to an end, so I might enter what-am-I-going-to-do-next mode soon. But until then, keep up with the messages, and I hope everything is well back home.

Back in Boruca

2009-07-31T09:34:00.003-06:00

(Written on Tuesday, posted on Friday... we didn´t have internet in Boruca this week since the school´s computer teacher was at a conference and couldn´t fix our big confusing internet box. But don´t worry, I am alive.)

I’ve been back in Boruca since last Saturday, and as I readjust to waking up at 5:40 every morning, I struggle to stay awake to write this at 7:50 at night. Paired with the fact that I hurt my leg last week and have been walking a bit gingerly since, I’m in full-on Old Man Mode. Up next on tonight’s schedule is watching Wheel of Fortune, drinking sarsaparilla, and sending a check equivalent to my life savings to a nice Nigerian man who e-mailed me about a fantastic investment opportunity.

Anyways, for those who didn’t hear (since I assume that you all keep up on Costa Rican news), our two week vacation was lengthened to three by the Costa Rican government in order to stop the potential spread of Swine Flu. All the cases have been in the San Jose area thus far, so the cancellation for my part of the country was more of an added perk than a necessary precaution. With extra time on our hands, some of the other volunteers and I hung around San Jose for two days being really indecisive about every decision we faced, then eventually went to Puerto Viejo for three nights to enjoy some beach and surfing. As my friend John (the surfer of the group) puts it, I’m really good at surfing right up until the point when I have to actually stand up and surf. I’ve got everything else down, though.

The readjustment shock that everyone asked me about has been pretty much nonexistent. My Spanish fell right back in place, and my mind has yet to explode like it did the last time I came back from a long vacation. (No, really. It actually exploded. You should be impressed that I’m even typing right now.) I’ve had all of my classes this week, which puts me on pace for my first non-interrupted week since sometime in March. Here’s some of what’s been going on since I’ve returned:

- I’ve now read fourteen books this year, fifteen if you count my re-reading of Goosebumps #9 Welcome to Camp Nightmare, read in about an hour while waiting for the bus on the side of the Interamericana. Since the topic of Goosebumps rarely comes up anymore, I will go on record as saying that Welcome to Camp Nightmare had the best ending of any book in the series.

- I continue to add to my legendary exploits while playing along to “Quien Quiere Ser Millionario,” Costa Rica’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionare?” For example, just as I’m typing this, I got three questions right (about amphibians, ancient alphabets, and subatomic particles) even though our TV’s picture isn’t working. The top prize for the CR version is 25 million colones, or about $44,000. By the way, when I said that my exploits were “legendary,” I actually meant that they have been mentioned, in passing, during a coffee break at school. Once.

- I brought back an (American) football with me to Boruca, since some of my students had expressed an interest in learning it/really like playing Madden ’98 on my computer even though they have no idea what’s going on. I brought it out during recreo today, and within about 30 seconds the every single one of the boys that had gathered wanted to be a professional placekicker. No interest in the throwing, running, defending, or blocking parts of the sport. Just the kicking. Figures. I don’t yet have the heart to tell them that the kicker is usually lowest on both the respect and pay totem poles, but I must say that with my help, they’ve got the snap-hold-kick down to under two seconds.

- My family’s house has been added on to a number of times over the years, so it has a few quirks that come with constant expansion. My bedroom, for example, has a window… into another room. Before I left, my curtain (read: sheet on a string) was a nondescript floral pattern. When I came back, though… POKEMON! Picachu and Jigglypuff now protect me against mosquitos and large spiders every night.

- Boruca's new English laptop is up and running with some sweet English and typing software. As of now, the kids are using it during recess, lunch, and sometimes after school, and it's a great thing to have when only three kids show up to class and I can't use my lesson plan since I'd just have to repeat it next class anyway. The Peace Corps volunteer and I are going to work out a system where we can lend it to adult students in her English night courses so they can practice their English at home. For now, though, I will continue to enjoy eight kids huddled around the laptop, all screaming "The girl is walking" into the microphone at different paces and pitches, confusing the program enough that it just tells them that they're wrong. They'll learn.

It was great to see a lot of you while I was home. If I didn’t get to see you, well, solo seis mas meses hasta mas Tiempo de Dan. (It sounds a lot more fun/less creepy in Spanish) It was also really fun hearing about the random people who read this blog (and by that I mean people who aren’t named Patricia Roberta Mary Schaub Perkins), so leave a comment/send a message if you’ve been following but I haven’t been in contact this year. Hasta luego.

Last post before vacation!

2009-06-30T10:55:00.002-06:00

I’ve been slacking on the blog a bit lately due to a hectic/irregular schedule and an average bedtime of 7:30 or 8, but here’s one last update before I head home this Friday for our vacation.

- The MEP (Minesterio de Educacion Publica) meetings at my school were a blast, even if they did end up cancelling most of my classes for two weeks. The point of the meetings were to introduce the various directors and bureaucratic types (who live and work in San Jose, which might as well be a different country) to the culture and lifestyle of indigenous people. What this means is that, for at least a few days, I was not the most touristy-looking person in Boruca. Each day the MEP members were split into groups, and each group got to visit a ‘local’ town to talk to the inhabitants and study the school. The first day, I was told to go with a group to a town called ‘Alto Las Moras,’ which according to our map was 1km away. The map was wrong. Alto Las Moras is actually a 3 mile, 2 hour walk almost straight up the mountain. This two hours could have easily been reduced to about one if the San Jose-ers didn’t stop nearly every 30 seconds to take a picture or argue the edibleness of a number of plants. When we finally arrived, all of Escuela Alto Las Moras was there to greet us – all three students and one teacher. Three boys: one in fifth grade, two in fourth. Their prom is going to be pretty lame. I spent a good amount of time talking to the teacher about their English classes. Since they’re so isolated, she’s had to teach herself English and then do her best to pass along that knowledge to her students. She’s even gone through the effort to create a huge book of lesson plans, material and (most importantly) pronunciations for any future teacher who might take her spot. Pretty impressive.

The view from Alto Las Moras. Boruca is down the mountain in the center of the picture. Remember that it takes an hour to drive up the mountain just to get to Boruca and that should give you an idea of how isolated Alto Las Moras is.

The next day, I was chosen to be the leader of a group that was heading down the mountain to Rey Curre. I’m pretty sure they just did this to make me feel needed, since my sole responsibility as leader was to tell our driver to take a left at the bottom of the mountain. My day in Rey Curre was a full one – a class in Brunka (the native language of Boruca and Curre), visiting various village elders, and lunch at the local swimming hole. While all of my other group members decided to stay professional, I took advantage of the hot day by going swimming with our sixth grade tour guides. The swimming hole had a 13 or so foot ledge that you can jump off of, and as I was about to make the plunge, my colleagues screamed at me to stop. “Hay piedras?” I ask, trying to find out if I was about to jump into rocks. “No, tiene que esperar por una hora despues de comiendo para nadar.” That’s right, in Costa Rica, they’re damn serious about the probably-false-since-I’ve-never-actually-seen-any-evidence-of-it-
being-true rule that you have to wait an hour to swim after eating. I shrug them off, jump in, and come up screaming and gasping for air. They jump up, readying themselves to come in and save me. “Que mentiras,” I say as I change my expression to an “I-gotcha” smile, letting them know that they’ve been had.

-While watching another demonstration of the “Juego de los Diablitos” on the street next to my house, a preschooler who has recently decided that Teacher is his best friend sat down to me and started to talk. After a few minutes of asking me how to say different words in English, sometimes asking the same word two or three times upon forgetting it, he makes the astute observation that my skin is white.

“I know.”

“Why?”

“In my country, there are many people who have white skin.”

He ponders this. After apparently failing to accept my answer as truth, he proceeds to scratch my arm with his fingernail.

“Que buscas?” What are you looking for?

“Su piel café.” Your brown skin.

- I spent the weekend in Dominical – the usual of getting burnt, getting physically abused by the waves while surfing, and eating. This time, though, we had the added activities of watching the MTV Michael Jackson video marathon and looking up random MJ trivia on Wikipedia. Did you know, for example, that Slash played the main guitar riff on ‘Black or White?’ Or that he wrote ‘The Way You Make Me Feel’ because his mother wanted a song “you could shuffle to?” Or that ‘Bad’ was originally called ‘Exceedingly Mischievous’ before his label suggested the lyric change to make things flow better? Yup. Most if not all of those are true.

And, to give you an idea of the standard of news down here, in the coverage immediately following his death, the stations clearly didn’t have enough money to pay for the royalties to all of his most famous videos. So, with time to fill and nothing to fill it with, they proceeded to play a full two minutes of Weird Al Yankovic’s ‘Fat,’ a parody of ‘Bad.’ No commentary, no insight, only the line “Jackson was one of the most imitated musicians of all time” under the video. Awkward.

- Yesterday, I had my first mask-carving class with the father of two of my students. All the masks here are hand-carved from balsa wood or (less commonly) cedar. We started one out of balsa - cutting and trimming the trunk of its bark alone took about an hour, so I can only imagine how long the carving will take me. I’m sure I’ll force pictures on you at some point, so stay tuned.

As Fourth of July nears, I figured I'd post this video/song. It's Jose Feliciano's 1968 version of the "Star Spangled Banner," one of the first 'alternative' renditions of the song and my personal favorite version of our national anthem. (Yes, I keep track of these sort of things.) I listen to my mp3 of this song almost every night here in Boruca. Happy Fourth!

I’m heading home this Friday, and should be back in Boston by late Friday night. I’ll be around for two weeks, before make the culture-shocking 36-hour turnaround from Boston to teaching in Boruca again. Thanks, as always, for reading, and hopefully I’ll be able to see most of you when I’m home.

Jugador sucio

2009-06-13T23:26:00.002-06:00

RECREO!!!

Just an update to let everyone know how everything is going. My week helping out with summer orientation was great, and a definite change from the chaos of dealing with the needs of 155 students in Spanish. The summer volunteers are a great group who had a lot to take in during just one week of orientation - both adjusting to the culture and (for most) being a teacher for the first time. They all had the chance to evaluate my work as a orientation assistant at the end, and while I did get a number of good comments about the classes/workshops I ran, the vast majority took the time to let the Boston headquarters that I am the world's cheapest and dirtiest indoor soccer player. This may or may not be true, but all I know is that my team won it's game 12-0, and I scored way more goals than my limited athletic ability should have allowed me to. Entonces, creo que ellos tienen un poquito de celoso.

The biggest news is that our volunteer group has been officially declared an "epidemic" by the Costa Rican government. It seems that someone in our group caught mono and was contagious during two weekends where almost everyone was staying in close quarters - our rafting trip and our mid-year meeting. (And since sanitation is pretty much non-existent here, it was bound to happen) In all, at least 12 of our 21 have caught it, including me. I was spared from a really bad case, so I was only tired for a week or so and sick/feverish for two or three days. In my eyes, this is more than a fair price to pay to say that I've been part of a government-certified epidemic. I've already updated my resume to include this exciting accomplishment.

We have a MEP (CR's ministry of education) meeting in Boruca this coming week, and we've been having a number of meetings to prepare for the 100+ outsiders that will be staying at our school for the week. Since these meetings are in Spanish, I tend to follow along for a few minutes and then lose track of things once people get into details and start talking faster. Since the meetings have been anywhere from 2-4 hours, I've been pretty bored. So, like any responsible adult, I do my best to drag down the overall maturity level of those sitting near me by passing notes. While everyone else is arguing about what fruits to serve with dinner on Wednesday night or how we're going to keep these people clean when we don't have showers, I'm writing poems about how I have Swine Flu. I've been told that I have 40 people sleeping in my room for Wednesday and Thursday nights. I have trouble fitting in my 4th grade class of 27 students, and that's just with them sitting in desks. I can't wait to see how it plays out. My director says that I definitely don't have classes Wednesday, and that "we'll see" about Thursday. "We'll see," I'm guessing, means "there's no freaking way you're having classes." I'll be sure to get photos of the poor souls that are sleeping in Teacher's room.

I've also received a few kind donations over the past month or so that I've yet to give public thanks for - and, in this age of Facebook and Twitter, nothing is official until it is published online. Laura Atwell (my aunt) and Michelle Cheney (family friend) both donated WT in my name, which lets me purchase supplies for my class/students. And Darcy Schramn, a parent of one of my students in Cohasset (you know, that other school I taught at, the one that didn't have fires and stray horses outside of my classroom) donated a laptop(!) that I'll be bringing back with me after my trip home in July. The students are always asking to use my laptop during recreo, so they're quite excited that they're getting one of their own. If you happen to know of any good/inexpensive games or programs that teach English or typing skills, let me know, as I'll be loading it up while I'm home. So, a huge public thanks to Laura, Michelle, and Darcy.

Back to Boruca tomorrow. I've been told I have classes on Monday, but I'm getting ready for a crazy week. Thanks, as always, for reading, and I'll be seeing everyone in Boston in about three weeks!

Obligatory "Cute Kids" post

2009-05-29T23:58:00.006-06:00

Casa Yoses, San Jose
I'm spending the next ten days away from Boruca in order to help run the orientation for WT's summer volunteers, who teach in remote high schools where the students otherwise learn by video. Since I have the bandwidth, I've uploaded a few videos of my first graders showing off their skills:

One of my first grade classes singing "Hello Teacher." It's second nature to them now, but the first time we sang, we spent at least 25 minutes on the "I am fine, thank you" line. I told them that people in the US would be watching it, and they were quite excited.

The Hokey Pokey. They're not all there on the words, but the do know all of the body parts, "in," "out," and sometimes "Hokey Pokey." The rule is that we can't sing/dance until they say the word in English. We also always end on "body," since it's a good excuse to go crazy and just push each other around. Not the most studious method in the world, but hey... they're 6 and they know 14 different body parts in English.

My other first grade class practices their animals by drawing on the board. Monkey is the consensus favorite. They also don't see the need of using an eraser, so instead they use their hands and get covered in chalk by the end of the drawing session.

Some pics of my classroom:

From the door
Side view, set up for the first/second graders because they lose focus if they're more than 5 feet away from me.

Pablo and Samuel, two of my first graders. Pablo's version of a smiling is looking really, really worried.

Some sixth graders work on their family tree. Notice the ruler and protractor for precise lines. Costa Rican kids can be insane perfectionists - if it isn't perfect, they erase it and start over. Also, if you notice my desk in the background, you'll see one of the drawers sitting on top of my desk. I somehow managed to pull it all the way out, and now it won't go back in.

We ended class early so we could wash all the chalk off.

Rough day at the office for Pablo

Miguel, one of my sixth graders, missed school the day of a test and didn't study for the makeup. He's having a bit of trouble here. I couldn't resist.

Heading back to Orosi tomorrow morning, and I'm excited to get to know the new volunteers and have longer conversations with my original host family. I'll have good access all week, so I hope to hear from some of you. Take care!

Mi familia

2009-05-22T17:26:00.005-06:00

KAPS Place Hotel, San Jose
As I've mentioned before, living in Boruca has made it impossible to sleep past 6:00am without making an effort, even when I'm not actually there and sleeping in a hotel halfway across the country. Entonces, it's 6:45am and I've been up for over an hour, even though I'm 7 hours of buses away from Boruca. All of the volunteers had to head into San Jose this weekend for our mid-service meeting, which was a one-day shindig to keep us updated and make us realize that the year is flying by. Normally, I'd be angry about having to travel so far for a meeting, but considering that the government payed for our travel, food, and lodging for two days, I can't complain. I'm heading back to Boruca around 10 this morning, finishing up the first grading trimester this week, then heading back to San Jose and Orosi for a week to help run the orientation for the summer volunteers.
A lot of people have been asking for info and pictures of the people in my family, so here we go:
Yaneth - Host mom: Yaneth, like any Costan Rican mother, is the head of the household. She weaves traditional textiles/bags/purses by hand for a living, using the big loom (Is that the right word? I'm no expert...) pictured above, or a smaller one that straps around her back. She's also recently started painting and selling Borucan Diablito masks, so we have a huge display of those hanging on our kitchen wall for any tourists who stop buy looking to buy some crafts. Yaneth keeps my diet well-stocked with avocados, and has an uncanny knack at beating me to the laundry machine the second after the water comes back on.
Oscar, host Dad (with Nashaly) - This picture might be the only time I've ever not seen Oscar smile. He teaches Brunka, Boruca's traditional language, in my school and in a nearby town. He's also currently learning English, and takes great delight in teaching me bad words in Spanish and Brunka. (His gift to me when I first arrived in town was a book named "Mierda." Feel free to look it up.)
Nashaly and Dilan, host sister and host cousin - Probably my two best friends in Boruca, and definitely the people I talk to the most. Nashaly is four, so she hasn't started school yet, but she knows a few phrases in English: "My name is Nashaly," "I love you," and "Please don't go" - the final one always sung to the tune of some song I don't know. Nashaly is very patient with my Spanish, and if I ask her to speak slower she'll start with "Vea..." (Look...), and take a second to say each syllable.
Dilan is two, and is usually living in our house with his mom, Josefina (who unfortunately I don't have a picture of). Him and Nashaly are constantly together, unless they're fighting, which happens a good 4-5 times a day. Dilan is big on trying to impress me with his one English sentence, which is the combination question/answer of "What your name is Dilan." This versatile sentence can also be used as a declaration of other people's identities, hence "What your name is Daniel" or "What your name is Scooby." He also woke everyone up one morning screaming "YA NO TE AMO!!!" (Now I don't love you!), which has since become my family's favorite phrase.
Isha, host sister - Isha is 13 and in her first year of colegio/high school, the American equivalent of 7th grade. As you could probably guess, 90% of our conversations revolve around making fun of each other and trying to start rumors about fake boyfriends/girlfriends. In case you were wondering, she's holding a cake.
Scooby, host dog - Scooby is our one remaining pet since Dooby died. Scooby is a former street dog who the family adopted. Because of this, he's well-known around town, and has a huge gang of other dog friends, of which I'm pretty sure he's the leader. He's not the smartest dog ever, but he's loyal and always good for a dumb-dog moment or two. For example, the times he's followed me to school to sit in my class/bite my students/jump on me and get me all muddy, or the time when he chased the family's truck down the mountain, a four-mile trek, because he was the only one that wasn't going. I keep Scooby well-fed, and he rewards my food and petting by playfully (usually) biting my hand and stealing my sandals.

Some other pics:

Nashaly tried to take a photo of Dilan and I. Didn't work out too well, but I'm sure some modern art museum would display it.
Half of my fourth graders. I think this was the day when we started to play BINGO, I realized I had nothing to give as a prize, and just ended up giving the winner 400 colones (about 70 cents).
It's about time to pack up, say goodbye, and head back to Boruca. The end of any term in school is always a tough week, so hopefully I survive the next four days.

If you want me to do a blog post about a specific topic, or want to see more pictures of a certain thing, let me know. Thanks for the messages as always!

Dan

Demasiado matematicas, and I'M VISTING BOSTON SOONISH!

2009-05-14T08:57:00.007-06:00

Our bridge got washed out, so this is how I cross the river to get to school every day.
(Mentiras. A group of volunteers went rafting on the Rio Pacuare, and we found 25 or 30 foot overhang with a swingable vine next to it. If you haven't noticed, this blog is basically a place for me to post the few photos where I don't look like a tool.)

Just a quick update, letting everyone know that I'm still very much alive, despite no updates to this blog in a while. The first trimester of school ends next week, so I've been working nonstop to prepare/make/give/correct exams to my students. Unlike the US, where I could essentially determine the value of tests, quizzes, class participation, and homework, Costa Rica has a very specific system that requires more math than I'd like/capable of doing without computers. For example, correcting a single first grader's test took no more than 15 seconds (it's not too hard to see if they circled the picture of the dog or not), but figuring out their score's percentage as it relates to their overall grade AND the their grade for the 'exams' category (which is 30% of their overall grade, still following?) took a lot longer. The harrowing process of correcting and 'mathemetizing' final exams for ALL of my 155 students next week is bad enough, but then I have to do final grades as well, which involve combining the exam scores with scores from 4 other categories (observations, class work, attendance, and personal opinion), all of which have their own mathematical formulas. Fun. Basically, I've been spending a lot of time on Microsoft Excel. I'm pretty sure the entire system was designed to make things objective, but considering that at least half of any student's grade is based on my subjective observations of them and my 'personal opinion' of them, I'm not sure if it's quite achieving that purpose. Oh well... at least it's avocado season in Boruca, and the avocados here are free and twice the size of the ones we have in the states. Guacamole makes any situation tolerable.

Also, I've officially decided to head back to Boston for my two-week break in July - the 3rd through the 18th. All of the other volunteers seem to have their family or friends coming down here, but since my pregnant sister and airplane-hating mother can't make the trip down, I'll be heading up thanks to a combined birthday/Christmas/Columbus Day/Kwanza present from my family. I'm looking forward to seeing everyone, eating a ton of fast food, and having running water for more than four hours every day.

Today I'm heading off to visit Emily, a fellow volunteer near the city of San Vito, to observe her classes tomorrow. Next week we have a mid-year meeting (time is flying!) and the week after that I'll be helping to run an orientation for WorldTeach volunteers who come for just the summer. Lot's of stuff to keep me going as the rainy season starts.

As always, thanks for the e-mails and messages, and thanks for following the blog. Hopefully I'll get to see everyone in July. (And I promise I'll update with a real post soon...)

Juan Santamaria Day video... and sloth photo

2009-04-25T12:13:00.006-06:00

Here's the video of our school "assembly" for Juan Santamaria Day. Fun times. For the full story, read the previous post. Just in case you wanted to know, you can see the outside of my classroom for most of the video - it's the left part of the green building that all the students are standing in front of. And here's my sloth friend and I, sharing a moment:

Some sad news to report, though. A few days after I got back from Puerto Viejo, our puppy, Dooby, became sick and passed away. Hammock time hasn't been nearly as fun, but life goes on. Scooby is still as crazy as ever, and he continues to follow me to class most days of the week.
I can't believe it's almost May. First trimester is ending soon, and the first and second graders have their first test on Monday. If their skill of singing "Old McDonald" translates, they should do pretty well.
As always, thanks for all the messages!

2009-04-16T10:28:00.006-06:00

Sometimes, you just come home and there's a severed pig's head in your sink, you know?
With that being said...

April 17^th

It’s been an eventful week and a half: vacation, the most un-Eastery Easter ever, the culture shock of returning to Boruca, and perhaps my weirdest day at school yet.

Puerto Viejo was amazing – probably my favorite travel spot that I’ve yet to visit in Costa Rica. It’s located on the Caribbean coast, with a large portion of the population coming from a Carribean/Rastafarian background. This means that almost everyone speaks English, which was like running into a brick wall on the road to learning Spanish. The town itself is centered around two or three relatively busy streets with restaurants and bars, but luckily it’s been able to maintain the Caribbean vibe and hasn’t become too touristy. There are beaches within 100 yards of the center, but the further you walk away from town, the better they get. A day-by-day account would probably be boring (plus I’m lacking in the travel-writing department), but here’s some highlights:

(Actually, no. After spending twenty minutes typing out just the highlights, I realize that even they make for boring reading. Unless the story involves travelling to space or getting kidnapped, hearing about someone else’s vacation is about as exciting as hearing about someone’s fantasy baseball team or how smart their child is. Here’s the highlights of the highlights, in as terse as manner possible.)

- Kayaked down jungle river. Saw monkeys. Waved at monkeys. Monkeys did not wave back. Monkeys preferred to sleep.

- Watched Red Sox at a bar. A reggae bar. A loud reggae bar. Left. Found another bar to watch Red Sox. This bar played only 2Pac. Sox lost. Sang along to “Changes.”

- Ate avocado for breakfast. Ate avocado while riding bike. Ate avocado while standing in line for ATM.

- Saw sloth climbing a tree. Took photos. Was not satisfied with only photos. Approached sloth. Sloth reached out and shook my hand. Bonding. Invited sloth to come to dinner. Sloth said yes; we ate lobster. Last sentence was a lie. Sorry.

So there’s my five days in about 100 words. All in all, I recommend Puerto Viejo, but not as much as I recommend meeting a sloth.

It being Semana Santa (Holy Week) and all, we had to catch a bus out on Thursday or get stuck there for the weekend, as the country essentially shuts down. We made it back to San Jose by late afternoon, and the streets were so deserted that I was waiting for a horde of zombies to appear from around the corner. We spent a few days in the city, which wasn’t all that eventful but relaxing nonetheless.

Easter Sunday was definitely a weird one. Good Friday is the more important day in Semana Santa (essentially everything is closed), and Easter is more of a travel-back-from-wherever-you-are-day. I spent ten hours on or waiting for a bus on Easter, and my Easter dinner was me eating some cold chicken, rice, and beans by myself at the only fast-food restaurant open in Buenos Aires, the town where I catch the bus to Boruca. If it sounds depressing, it’s because it is. On the bright side, one of my friends from WorldTeach (who had been in Puerto Viejo and San Jose with me) had been kind enough to buy us all some chocolate eggs that morning, and I got to have my one Eastery moment while sitting on a curb in the hot, dry, and dusty plot of concrete with the terrible misnomer of Buenos Aires.

Getting back to Boruca was probably the biggest case of culture shock I’ve had since arriving in Costa Rica. Making the immediate switch from English, restaurants, beaches, and Red Sox to Spanish, rice and beans, more Spanish, and lesson planning was tough to handle all at once. Oh, and we didn’t had water in the house for five days after I got back, and apparently my family is building a small house for some family member outside of my room. Stressful and dirty would be two good words to use to describe the situation. Mondays are usually tough enough because three of my four classes are either first or second graders, but this past Monday I was unable to speak properly in any language by about 1:30 in the afternoon. Fortunately, all the other teachers seemed to be feeling the same way, so we made a collective decision to have an extra ten minutes in between each class.

During my final class, I saw the sixth graders carrying wood and dried-out palm leaves towards an empty spot about 30 feet outside of my window. It was interesting enough to investigate after school, and they told me that they were building a rancho palma hut for Tuesday’s celebration of Juan Santamaria Day, a national holiday commemorating a battle between the Costa Ricans and a group of invading American southerners in the 1850’s. The group, led by William Walker, were trying to establish a state in Costa Rica in order to obtain more votes for slavery in Congress. The basic plot is that a young man named Juan Santamaria died in an effort to burn down the American’s fort, becoming a national hero in the process. As the Americans fled, William Walker, the leader of the Americans, was eventually captured and killed, putting an end to the invasion. (History lesson over.) I helped build the hut for a while, with my official job being the tall guy who nails in anything that’s too high for the Ticos to reach.

As I walked past the school gates the next morning, I was greeted by the normal cries of “TEECHAR!”, only now every one of them was aiming a fake wooden gun at me. Turns out that all of the students are asked to bring fake guns to school for a reenactment of the battle. Since the battle, you know, involved shooting at Americans and all, guess who got shot at all day long? After failing to convince the other teachers and some older students that William Walker wasn’t representative of my part of the country, I cheerfully played along, happily grunting, choking, and dying every time I was shot at.

First period went by normally, as I practiced numbers 1-100 with one of my third grade classes. Right after taking attendance for my second-period sixth graders, we were all called to area in between the two main buildings to begin the assembly. Some pre-school kids dressed up as historical figures and told the story of the battle. In case you’re wondering, pre-school plays are the same everywhere. After what I’m sure was three or four weeks of practice, one kid got the microphone and said, “Hola, yo soy…,” turned to his teacher and asked, “Como se llama?”

The students were then sent class-by-class to the area around the rancho palma. At the time, I had no idea why we were moving, but since I technically was in charge of the sixth graders I was told to go with them. I then found out that since they’re the oldest in the school, the sixth graders had the honor of going inside the rancho palma while everyone else stood about 30 feet away. After about two minutes of huddling inside the rancho with 18 sixth graders and having NO idea what was going on, one of them finally told me that we were about to reenact the battle. Why, then, were we inside a hut? Well, guess who was playing the part of the Americans? Yup! So, one by one, each class (playing the Costa Ricans) ran up and ‘attacked’ the hut, with the sixth graders fighting back and forcing them away. The hut was cramped, but I admit that it was fun fighting off 7 year olds who were attacking me with wooden guns. After about five minutes of this, we had successfully repelled every class, and a long pause ensued.

Then I saw the torch. One of the teachers was wrapping a towel around a stick and getting a lighter ready to set it on fire. Still huddled in the rancho palma hut, I asked the kids if we should leave. They said no. At this point, I figured it was a good time to start recording a video. The teacher eventually lit the torch and handed it off to a student chosen to play Juan Santamaria. It was right around this point when I realized that our reenactment was going to be pretty friggin’ realistic: the rancho was going to be lit ablaze with us inside, and we would have to run for our lives. Let’s take a moment and remember that this is a school assembly. Felix, the student playing Santamaria, did his best hero impression and stumbled toward the rancho, falling down and reaching out with one last stretch to light a corner on fire. Being made of dried palm leaves, the caught fire almost immediately, with 17 students and one confused teacher inside. It wasn’t until smoke filled the hut and one wall was completely engulfed in flames that the students decided to make a run for it. We pushed our way outside, and as soon as I was out of harm’s way, I turned around to record what our fate would have been had we waited a few more seconds: The hut had turned into a fireball, with flames reaching more than 20 feet up into the overhanging branches of a nearby tree. The entire school chased after the student who was chosen to play William Walker, and they returned a minute later with him ‘captured,’ forcing him to face a 155-student firing squad shortly thereafter. Just like that, the assembly was over.

Not quite knowing how to react to government-sponsored arson and child endangerment (but having thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless), I let my sixth graders know that the rest of class would be cancelled so we could watch the video over and over again. I’ll upload it to YouTube/this blog the next time I’m in San Jose with a fast connection. Even though a school assembly where a hut is set on fire with kids inside of it would probably be a national news story in the US, apparently it’s no big deal here. By lunchtime, everything was back to normal – except for the fact that my room reeked of smoke.

That's about it for now. I'm hoping to do devote my next update to my host family, house, and a day in the life. We'll see if they allow me to take photos of them. Thanks for all the messages!

Semana Santa

2009-04-04T06:57:00.006-06:00

Cases Yoses, San Jose (again) - 7am
I'm back at Casa Yoses for the umpteenth time as I get ready for a week vacation in the Carribean town of Puerto Viejo. All of Costa Rica has Holy Week off, so a small group of us are heading off to one of the few places in the country that had any vacancy.
Nothing too big to report on, other than the first round of tests going pretty well - at least for the kids who regularly show up for class. For the regulars, very few scored under 90, which obviously I was happy about. The excruciating part was giving the test (they were all oral exams, basically short conversations with me using the questions/answers/vocab they know from class) to kids who decided to show up to class for the first time on the day of the test. Obviously, there was no way they were going to pass, but I still had to sit there and ask them if they knew what each question meant in Spanish, then wait to see if they could formulate a response in English. I wish I had written some of the worst answers down, but I heard more answers like "I am pencil" and "Yesterday is today" than I thought was possible. My favorite part was a 4th grader trying to explain to me that the test was unfair because all the words were different than they are in Spanish. Hmmm. Yes. That would be called 'another language,' Like... say... English? The lesson here: go to English class.
We've been learning colors, 1-10, and simple classroom objects in first and second grade. It's like herding cats sometimes, but at least they're cute cats. BINGO with a sticker as a prize is their preferred means of practicing, and we'e even made it all the way to the point where I've outlawed Spanish during BINGO games (ie no yelling out 'azul' after I call out 'blue'). Making the BINGO cards was an adventure. We needed 16 spaces on the cards: 10 colors, 6 classroom objects. Total time needed to make them in each class? One hour, ten minutes. Even then, we ran into problems like kids coloring in a whole column orange, or realizing after the fact that they only had 12 boxes in their card. No worries, though... they were content to place the markers on the paper and just yell out "BINGO!" anyways. One student who wasn't there when we made them showed up to the next class cardless and clueless as to what BINGO is. He was happy to put the markers on the random colors and drawings that he had in his notebook. His version of BINGO was 4 markers in any order, anywhere. He hasn't won yet.

Obviously, soccer is a big deal here, so when the school teams have a game, classes are more or less canceled. I learned this the hard/boring way last time, when I decided to stay at school and ended up having classes of 4 kids all day long. This time, I asked my director if I could cancel my classes and go along. He was surprised that I was even asking, and told me to go along and take pictures. The games were fun, the weather was scorching, and it was refreshing to see kids playing sports for the fun of it - no overbearing coaches or parents, no spots on more elite teams up for grabs, etc. A couple of pictures:
We headed up to a sketchy bridge after the boys team lost in a shootout to hang out for a while. As we entered town on the way back, the kids announced their return/loss with a chant of "perdimos" ("we lost!"). Video:

Classes were canceled again the following week for National Sports Day, aka National Play Sports and Let the White Guy Get Burnt Day. Pics:
Action shot of two of my favorite first graders, after five minutes of tying.
Hockey, without the ice, puck, or sticks.
Mini-soccer games. My insane tallness compared to the students/Tico teachers made it easy to just sit by the goal and head the ball in. Also, I had a moral decision when I took the final penalty kick to win the game against the 6th grade boys: miss it and let them feel good about tying the teachers, or rocket the ball at the poor goalie's face and let him know that Americans can play soccer too. Obviously, I unleashed one on the goalie, and the teachers were victorious.
And now, the obligatory Dooby picture:

He somehow got into my room and decided to take a nap on my backpack. I did not object.
Heading off to Puerto Viejo soon. Apparently they have good wireless access there, and I'll be trying to set up a Skype account. Thanks for the tons of messages you've been sending. Talk to you soon!

Canadian jingoism and fruit

2009-03-23T17:15:00.000-06:00

(Written on Saturday, posted on Monday)
Nothing too exciting in the last couple of weeks, hence the lack of updates. But I’ve finally stayed in Boruca for the weekend because I have various things to do… create the first tests of the year (done), make some new posters (not done, and likely staying that way considering the shop was closed yesterday and today), and laundry (in the process of being done, in true 24-year old style: wait all week until I’m on my last piece of clothing, then do it all at once). The washing machine takes a while to fill up, so I’m tied to the house for the time being. Not that I’d leave; it’s 90 something degrees outside, and I’m currently sweating in the shade of my room.
Classes have been going pretty well, and the third through sixth graders all have their first test this week. To give you an idea of what I teach on a day-to-day basis, the third graders’ test is ‘what is your name/how are you (with 7 emotions)/what day is today/tomorrow/yesterday’. They’ve got it down pretty good, except when they have to say the days of the week in order without the help of me singing our Days of the Week song. The sixth graders are a smart bunch, so they have all of the above questions plus year, month, classroom objects, weekly schedule questions (‘I have math on Fridays’), and describing the emotions of other people (he/she/it/we/they). This is the first time they’ve had English class two years in a row, so they’re doing pretty well.
I’ve also introduced a daily slang word for the 4th through 6th graders in a section of their notebooks I call “Talk Like a Gringo.” Gringo is a general word for an American. In some places, it’s more derisive, but in Costa Rica it’s the same as calling someone is Irish or Italian. (And don’t believe what you hear: the word didn’t come from Mexican soldiers yelling “Green, go!” at American troops during the Mexican-American War – army uniforms were still blue at this point, so the true origin of the word is a mystery. OK, I’ll stop being a history nerd now.) In any event, so far they’ve learned “What’s up?,” ‘cool,’ and ‘wicked’ in the Bostonian sense, of course. ‘What’s up’ and ‘wicked’ were pretty easy to demonstrate, but ‘cool’ took some work. After getting suggestions of cool people like Madonna and Michael Jackson, we eventually settled on ubiquitous reggaeton artist Daddy Yankee to be our beacon of coolness. I happen to hate Daddy Yankee and his one beat that he uses in every song with the passion of a thousand bad telenovelas, but at least they got it. My fourth grade class and I were practicing how to describe a group of people on Thursday when a random group of Canadian high schoolers walked by our window. I asked them if they could describe the group using ‘Talk Like a Gringo’ words, and to my delight they all said, “They are wicked cool!” Success. After school, my director gave me some stickers and bookmarks that the Canadians left for me. Awesome, I thought… until I saw that the stickers were all Canadian flags and the bookmarks had the Canadian national anthem printed on them. Some of the kids saw me getting them, so word is out that Tichar has stickers. Next week, it shall be my shameful duty to hand out Canadian propaganda to a group of malleable young minds. Will you let them grow up singing the “O, Canada” as they walk home from school or naming curling (or, worse yet, hockey) as their favorite non-soccer sport? No? In the spirit of good ol’ fashioned American imperialism, I beg you to send down all the patriotic nick-nacks you have. From a plastic flag to stealing the medals Grandpa won for storming Normandy, this is a cause worth fighting for.

Besides school, the thing that’s been taking up most of my time is fruit. Finding fruit, eating fruit, asking for fruit, thinking of new ways to get fruit, looking like an idiot while attempting to hit fruit off trees with a ten foot branch – if it has to do with fruit, I’ve done it. Not only is fruit healthy food, it’s free food. Considering that I try to live on $2 a week when in Boruca (no, really, $2… I’ve gone over only once), free food is the key to getting from lunch at 11am to dinner at 7pm without starving. My first fruit source was an orange tree behind my host grandmother’s house. The tree was technically in the neighbor’s yard, but the branch hangs over into her yard. Not that it matters, because neither of them use it, but I still felt bad. This is the tree that requires the huge branch and a good amount of work to get a single piece. After deciding that I looked stupid/criminal while doing it, I figured it was better to have children standing next to me so it looked like I was getting them fruit instead. Nashaly (my host sister) or my students were happy to oblige, and since they never wanted fruit anyways, it worked out pretty well. Considering the time it took and the fact that it was only possible to get one or two oranges a day, though, I needed to come up with other ways. Among them:
1. Combining learning with fruit-finding - My first graders are learning colors, so I set up a team scavenger hunt where they had to find an object of each color they were learning. One of them, of course, was ‘orange,’ and there just so happens to be an orange tree near our school. So as I watched proudly from my classroom, 14 six year olds hurled sticks at the tree in a desperate attempt to be crowned English Champion for the day. Result: seven oranges.
2. Translate for fruit - One day during class, three girls from the colegio (high school) knocked on my door. One of them is applying to a leadership program in the US and needed help with the application and essay, both of which needed to be done in English. I headed over to one of their houses a couple of nights later, and the two of them that were already there showed me around as we waited for the one who actually had the application. It turns out that they have orange, apple, mango, and avocado trees in their backyard, and that their backyard extends indefinitely outward because there’s nothing but mountains behind them. Upon seeing my delight at the amount of fruit, they said I could take whatever I wanted. As we sat there waiting, I ended up eating about 10 apples (they’re smaller and softer here, and a lot more addictive), two small mangos, and shoved as many oranges into my cargo shorts that I could fit. The third girl didn’t end up coming, so we had to reschedule for two nights later. Result: One essay written, lots more fruit.
3. Drop obvious hints on students – My sixth graders love to hang around my classroom and practice their English/teach me Spanish. One of the questions they knew from last year was ‘What is your favorite food,” which, as you can probably guess, I immediately jumped on. “My favorite food is… oranges. No… apples. No… avocado.” First, I learned that avocado starts growing here around May, at which point you will stop hearing from me because I’ll be eating it 24 hours a day. The next day, though, a sixth grader named Francisco stopped by my class before lunch and handed me a bag of about 20 apples. Result: Francisco gets a 100 in my class, I get 20 more apples, and many more likely to come from the students that saw my reaction.

700 words on fruit… nice. The only other big news I can think of is that today I opened a refrigerator for the first time since arriving in Costa Rica. I didn’t even think about it until now. Well, that about does it. My clothes are clean, and Dooby the puppy looks like he wants some hammock time with me.

Diablitos video

2009-03-14T06:42:00.002-06:00

Hostel Pangea, San Jose -
I'm in the city for the weekend to hang out with some volunteers that I haven't seen since Un Techo Para Mi Pais over a month ago. This place has a lightning quick internet connection, so I was finally able to upload the video of the Diablitos to YouTube.
So, what in god's name is going on in the video? Well, it's a demonstration of a three-day festival held in late December/early January each year. Borucans are indigenous people, meaning that they were in Costa Rica before the Spanairds started settling/taking over in the 1500's. The guys dressed up as Diablitos ('little devils") represent the Borucans, and the man dressed up in the bull suit represents the Spanairds. Essentially, they yell at each other and fight, with the Borucans eventually coming out on top.
This all took place on the street right next to my backyard. I was lucky enough to get a good seat for the performance, so there's no heads in the way. I did, however, almost get rammed by the bull a few times as he went after any Diablitos that came near my spot. You might also hear a few short explosions. Borucan boys love their fireworks, and set off M-80ish ones at all hours of the night... usually in the centro in front of my house. Here, they were just throwing them at the feet of the performers, trying to mess them up.
That's all I have for now. Now that I know that this place can handle uploads, I'll try to get some videos of my classes/students up as well. (Like, say, my first graders singing "Hello Teacher" for the 300th time and still loving it.)
Once again, thanks for the e-mails and messages. Talk to you all soon.

All the best,
Dan

Cataratas y Diablitos

2009-03-07T13:48:00.007-06:00

This past Friday was the first entirely free day I’ve spent in Boruca since my first few days here about a month ago. I don’t teach on Fridays, but every weekend I’ve either left early Friday morning or been too sick to function. I had no particular plans, but it ended up being a blog-worthy day, mostly for the pictures. (Only a few Awkward Dan Moments…. Sorry.)

I woke up at 7:30, which is comically late here in Boruca… to the point that Yaneth chuckled at me when I stumbled into the kitchen for breakfast. The church bell usually rings around 5:30 every morning, and things get rolling not long after that. You have to make an effort to stay asleep anytime after 6:30. I spent a couple hours doing laundry, which isn’t noteworthy besides the fact that it takes a shorter time to dry things in Boruca’s scorching sun than it does in an average dryer. I strolled down to the escuela to check my e-mail, and I found all of the teachers sitting in a circle of desks, apparently in a meeting that I hadn’t been informed about. I asked one of the cleaning ladies about it, and she assured me that certain people didn’t need to be there – the cleaning staff, the cook, and myself. Puzzled but not upset about missing an hour of unintelligible Spanish, I checked my e-mail in the lab. The windows are always closed to prevent theft and bugs, so it’s always hovering somewhere around 95 degrees. Facing a slow connection and an empty water bottle, I call it quits after a while and head home.

After lunch and some quality nothing-time, I decided to make something of the day and head to the waterfalls to take some long-overdue pictures. Camille, a girl from France who’s living in Boruca for a bit and working on a farm outside of town, lives in a rancho palma on the way (I’ll have to get pictures at some point… it’s like a decked out tree house), so I stopped by to see if she wanted to go. I met her waiting for the bus back to Boruca last week, and we have the natural connection of being two of the four people in Boruca who can speak English.

Pictures to go with words, since just words don´t cut when you probrably have Facebook open in another window (I know I do...):

Some pigs that were feeding next to the first waterfall. Not sure where they came from, but it made for a weird picture.

Shot of the second waterfall and the swimming hole it creates. I spent some time jumping off the little ledge that goes up on the right hand side of the photo (to the right of the last rocks that are dark from being wet). The highest I did was about 7 feet… the swimming hole is only about four feet deep, so I didn’t want to test my luck too much. The last time I was there, though, some kids were jumping from about 15 feet up, as well as from the branches on the tree that hangs over the pool. Seems dangerous, but I’m pretty sure I’ll give into boredom and do it by next weekend. (Don’t tell my insurance company.)

View from the top of the biggest waterfall, taken from the same spot as the last picture except turned around 180 degrees.

At this point, a group of 15 or so students from Rice University in Texas came down to the waterfalls, and I joined up with the tour they were getting from a few girls who live in Boruca. (It helped my ego that I spoke better Spanish than all but one of them.) They were in Boruca for a week helping to build some rancho palmas outside of town, and this was their one day to do “touristy” stuff. They were all really nice, and once again it was good to rest my mind a bit by speaking English.

We headed down a steep hill to the bottom of the big waterfall.

Picture of the big waterfall. To give you an idea of its size, there are two guys standing just to the right of the top of the waterfall – one in a white shirt, one in black – and the waterfall drops for another five or so feet past the bottom of the picture. I will not be jumping off this one.

We continued further down the slope, and the girls brought us to Boruca’s very own bat cave. I was never all that scared of bats to begin with, but I’ve become completely desensitized to them since moving here. One flies into the house every night, so I usually watch the news with one swooping across my face every ten seconds. Quite harmless. Couldn’t get any pictures of the inside of the cave, as the group was afraid that the flash would cause the bats to all fly outside and eat them. So, if you want to see the bat cave, just let me know when you’ll be flying down to Costa Rica to visit me.

As we were leaving, we found out that the guys at the top of the waterfall were part of a film crew that was shooting a documentary on Boruca. I headed home, did some work for school, then spent an hour lounging with our puppy Dooby on the hammock (PS – that dog loves me).

With the family all out of the house, I was reading quietly in my room when I started to hear drums. There’s always some kind of commotion going on outside of my house, but this was the first time I’d heard live drums. After a few seconds, I start to hear high-pitched yelps. I immediately recognized the yelps from a day I’d spent in the town of Rey Curre a month ago: Diablitos! Every year, Boruca (and on a smaller level, Rey Curre) have a festival called Fiesta de los Diablitos (little devils), where guys dress up like spirits (who represent the Borucans), get really drunk on homemade alcohol, and fight a guy dressed in a bull suit (who represents the invading Spaniards from the 1500’s) for three straight days with little to no sleep. Boruca is known for this fiesta, and I was lucky enough to catch the smaller version of it in Rey Curre in early February (Boruca’s is in December).

As it turns out, some Borucans were putting on a demonstration of the festival for the documentary film crew that was in town. It was on the street, literally ten feet up the path from my backyard. I was one of the first people out, but pretty soon half the town had poured out of their houses and made their way to the fighting. Pictures were tough because of the weird lighting that the film crew used, but I managed to get a few good shots (and stole some from Nick, another American living in Boruca for a couple of months), as well as a video that I’ll try to post at some point. The demonstration went on for about a half hour, and then I went back inside to end my day with some dinner and Family Guy en espanol.

That`s all for now. I`m in Palmar Norte for a day to get some stuff done, and I`m heading back to my amazing hotel to lounge for a while- pool, tropical plants, but most importantly... cable TV with the World Baseball Classic in English! At $15 bucks a night, I can`t complain. Hasta luego.

Normalcy (Kinda)

2009-03-04T10:04:00.006-06:00

The lack of updates lately is partly due to the fact that I’m settling into normalcy here, making it seem like there’s nothing interesting to write about. “Normal” here, though, has taken some getting used to, but at this point I’m a bit surprised at my lack of culture shock.

It’s now the third week of school, and my schedule is finally fixed, allowing me to see my first and fifth graders for the first time. The third week is also the unofficial “official” start of school, meaning that introductory classes are over and most all of the students are now showing up regularly. It’s been weird having new kids show up three weeks into school, but the absence policy here (aka, nothing…) puts the onus on the students to catch up themselves, rather than the teacher having to create make-up work for them. I just got an official list of my students yesterday, so I’ve started my threats of notas malas if my students don’t attend class.

The classes themselves are going pretty well. I’ll admit that it’s been an adjustment teaching the younger ones (first and second grade), as they barely know Spanish let alone English. I’m not used to repetition to the point of insanity… for example, in a first grade class last week we spent 25 minutes working on the pronunciation of the line “I am fine, thank you” in a song called “Hello, Teacher.” Despite the frustration, it’s been nice to have the same kids sign the song to me as I walk home for lunch every day. The older kids are a blast, especially my 4^th and 6^th graders. (I don’t know the 5^th grades well enough yet.) We spent last Friday writing pen pal letters to my former students in Cohasset, and some of them were going after novios/novias (boyfriends/girlfriends) pretty shamelessly. (Grades and ages are pretty fluid here… the way it works is that a student will be held back if they get below a 65 in any subject, so a student would be held back if they got a 100 in every other subject but got a 64 in English. Parents have no say. The result is things like 13 year olds in 4^th grade, even when they’re bright kids.) I also decided to introduce them to some American music during the letter-writing, and since most of them like music they can dance to but can’t understand the lyrics (read: vulgarities), I decided that Girl Talk was an ideal choice. It was a big hit, and some of the kids could even pick out some of the rap songs in the mix.

Despite my initial concerns of not being able to speak enough Spanish to get by, I find now that I’m speaking too much Spanish in class, since English-only is ideally the best way to teach. The older kids have been really helpful, and usually hover over me in between classes to talk and help me with my Spanish. And when I say “hover over,” I mean it… my desk usually looks like a football huddle, with kids fighting for the attention of “Tichar.” I’ve been lucky enough to have a girl named Kelly visiting Boruca for a few weeks, since she’s trained in ESL teaching and is fluent in Spanish. She’s sat in on a number of my classes and helped me notice and correct flaws. Marcos, the Special Education teacher, has also been a big help, as he’s in the process of creating a guide to help future English teachers in Boruca with their transition.

So, that’s what going on with my “normal” days. Kind of boring, but considering I was expecting language barriers, insane kids, and small fires, boring isn’t too bad. Oh, wait… there’s always small fires burning outside of my classroom, since that’s how they get rid of the trash. I don’t think fires on the playground would go over too well in a U.S elementary school…

Some short bits:

1. Yesterday morning, a second grader walked up to my window as I was drawing some pictures for class. He casually handed me a six-inch retractable razor and told me it was a gift. It probably shows that I’m adjusting to the culture when I simply said “Gracias” and went back to coloring.

2. Last Wednesday, I showed up to school to find that no fifth graders had showed up to school. Confused but used to the unexpected, I went home and did laundry. I returned about two hours later for my second period class, and only three first graders showed up. Since none of them knew a word of English, we played alphabet and color BINGO… and be “we played,” I mean “I gave them cards and told them when to put a marker on a square.” They seemed happy enough, and didn’t seem to notice that all of their cards were virtually identical, meaning that they all got BINGOs at the same time for every game. At this point, I found out there were some races going on that caused the older kids to miss school. Even though the races were over at this point, our director had made the decision to cancel the rest of the day and have a “meeting” at a beach. So, at 11am, having taught all of three students that day, I boarded a minibus and headed off to the beach with the other teachers, where we swam, played soccer, and ate whole fried fish - heads, eyes, and all – until 9pm that night.

3. On Wednesday of my first week, I came down with an awful fever. I hate missing work, but I felt bad enough to stay home on Thursday. At this point, my family was saying that I was simply adjusting to the food. Saturday comes, I haven’t eaten in three days, my entire body aches, and I’m sleeping 18 hours a day. At this point, the general consensus is that my body is not, in fact, adjusting to the food… now, I’m dying of Dengue Fever. It just so happens that the phones are out in Boruca, meaning that I can’t get in touch with my English-speaking doctor. I decide to make the 6.5 hour trip into San Jose anyways, and just as I’m leaving Boruca on the last bus out that day, I spot Jeremy and John, two volunteers from down the mountain who had decided to visit me. I yell a quick apology, and their faces drop as they learn that I’m traveling halfway across the country while they’re stuck on top of the mountain with nowhere to go. (I find out later that they hitched a ride back down in the back of a maure truck.)

I eventually get to the hospital, and settle on the Emergency Room with my doctor nowhere to be found. I’m able to communicate pretty well with the doctors I talk with, at least enough to get the directions on where to go to make sure that I’m not dying. After a blood test and spending an hour shivering in the waiting room (definitely got some stares from the Ticos), I find out that I’m probably not next on the Grim Reaper’s list and head off to a hostel for the night. I get the final clearance the next morning, but unfortunately (or not) by this point I had missed the last possible bus for my part of the country… which means that I’d miss Monday as well.

Arriving back at school on Tuesday, I head to the director’s office to profusely apologize for missing two days of school. “Tranquillo, tranquillo,” he says. Turns out that he had been out of town both days and didn’t even know that I was gone.

4. I headed to Dominical this past weekend with Jeremy and John for some downtime. After 30 minutes of getting absolutely thrashed by the waves (Dominical is a famous surfing hub, and the stereotypical long-haired American surfers outnumber the Ticos 3 to 1 – what this means is that I was completely out of my league, having been surfing twice in my life), I managed to stand up on my board for all of 3 seconds. I eventually manage to burn my skin to a nice lobster shade of red, and I retreated to the shaded hammocks to sleep and read for the read of the weekend. After, um, forgetting to read it when it was assigned to me in high school, I ended up loving The Great Gatsby. I did manage to get a few great pictures in Dominical:

Three or four foot iguana hanging out in a tree near the bus stop. Not nearly as mean as they look... they scurried away once I got close.

River that fed into the Pacific. On the first day I wanted to take a little stroll around the area to see if there was anything worth seeing. I made it to the mouth of the river (for those of you who failed geography, that's where the river meets the ocean) and decided that it'd be a good idea to walk across. I made it about halfway before the bottom dropped out from under me, and I was forced to swim the rest of the way while fighting the waves and currents. (Don't ask me why I didn't just turn around...) There wasn't too much on the other side, so I turned back around and swam it again. This picture is basically an excuse for me to brag about the fact that I didn't drown.

I took about 20 sunset photos while in Dominical, but settled on this one. I intend to eventually start a blog called "cornysunsetsincostarica.blogspot.com."

That's it for now. Thanks for all the messages!

Un Techo Para Mi Pais

2009-02-24T16:30:00.010-06:00

I’ve been working on this one in bits and pieces over the last week or two. I easily could have added a lot more, but 2,400 words seemed like a good cutoff point in order to keep myself (and you) sane. Having over two weeks with nothing planned after our orientation ended, our WorldTeach group spent a week in the town of Batan building houses with the volunteer organization Un Techo Para Mi Pais ("A Roof For My Country") for 26 poor families in that community. It was definitely one of the more memorable experiences of my life, for both positive and negative reasons.

On the down side, it rained - hard - for all but maybe an hour the entire week. Think of the hardest rain you've ever seen, and then thinking about trying to build houses in it for 10-12 hours a day. Also, throw in the fact that your most technologically advanced tools are a hammer and a length of plastic tube used to make sure everything is level. Then, add on that you're getting three small meals of rice and beans a day, not getting to shower, wash your hands, or sometimes even have access to a toilet... and then at the end of the day sleep on the cold, wet, concrete floor of an elementary school classroom with no windows. Wake up at 5:30 to the sound of more driving rain and start all over again. Needless to say, it was an tough week on the body, and if I were to make a list of the ten most unsanitary things I've done in my life (which I'm liable to do - I love lists), I'm pretty sure all ten would have occurred in Batan.

Walking in the rain w/gigante beam. 25 minutes or so to the house, a solid 40 with the beam.

What I looked at for more hours than I can count. The process: Dig, fill with rocks, fill with mud, stick pole in and smash down, measure, take pole out if not exact, and either add more rocks/mud or dig it out with your hands.

Lack of comfort aside, though, it was a week that I'm glad I experienced. Hearing about poverty and seeing it first hand are two completely different things, and I'm pretty sure that the fact that the families we were helping out had to live through worse conditions every day was one of the few things that kept me getting out of bed (or, rather, off of floor) and putting on the same wet clothes every morning.
The first family we worked with was actually an extended family living in three small huts on the same plot of land. The main one belonged to the grandmother and grandfather, and was made of a hodgepodge of wood and rusted tin. The other huts belonged to their children, their spouses, and the grandchildren. These were worse: each was a single-room structure for the whole family and all of their possessions, the walls and ceilings were garbage-bag material propped up by tree branches, there was one mattress for the entire family, and the floors were simply mud. There was no running water (only what could be pulled up from the ground), and the toilet was a box with a hole in it. We had three separate groups of about seven volunteers building this family three new houses over the first three or so days of the week.
The second family lived on the other side of town, but faced similar conditions. Their house was slightly larger, but it was still essentially one large room with blankets separating the different sections. From my count, there were at least seven people living here: mother, father, four children aged 3-18 (or thereabouts), and the infant son of the 18 year old girl. Their yard was almost entirely flooded out from the rain, and they told us (after we had made the mistake of washing ourselves off in it) that the water was probably contaminated with whatever had gone into their toilet, which once again was a hole in the ground.

The huts at the first site we worked on.

The homes we built weren’t anything amazing. They were probably about 15 feet long and 8 feet wide, a door, two windows, a tin roof to keep the rain out, and (something we often take for granted) a floor. In the US, this is more like a large tool shed, but this was a huge step up for these families, and provided them with an opportunity to make their lives just a little bit better.

A few of the countless moments, some good, some bad:

- As we enter the seventh hour of work in the pouring rain of the first day, I start to question the worth of my (or any) college degree. Working with the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan college students of our group has proved difficult due to language issues, and the four college-educated Americans and one medical school student from New Zealand are currently digging rocks out of the dirt road that leads to our family's huts using shovels and long metal poles. Taking directions on how to dig holes and precisely level the foundation columns in Spanish was way over my head, so I relegated myself to rock-digging duty, as we needed baseball sized rocks to steady the pillars we placed into the field of mud we were building on. Twenty years of education, some of which I'll be paying off well into my thirties, and I'm trying to figure out the fastest way to pry a rock out of a dirt road with a shovel. As we improve at our craft - I'm soon able to unearth rocks with a quick flick of the wrists - we start to make light of the situation, calling each other "rock stars," singing any song that has the word 'rock' in it (a variation of The Police's "Roxanne" - appropriately reworded and renamed to "Rocksanne" - was a favorite), and making any pun about rocks that we could think of. The rain doesn't seem as hard, and we feel validated by our menial yet necessary work. You know the old saying about having to work your way from the ground up? Literal application here.

Yeah, that'd be me moving a house BY MYSELF.

- Of the approximately 120 people that signed up for the week, I’m pretty sure that I was the least prepared. We received a list of items that we needed to bring, and for the most part they ranged from the expensive (a hammer and sleeping bag) to the inane (a single can of tuna). Instead of, you know, heeding the advice of the people who run these trips for a living, I decide to set my trip budget at about $6 and hope for the best. Besides the clothes that I brought along, I end up securing an inexpensive hammer and tape measure, both of low quality but packaged together for savings. I also obtain a pillow when I take the liberty of taking one out on long-term loan from the hostel I stayed at the night before, rationalized by the fact that they did not have the mechanical bull they had promised in my travel guide. I decide that expensive items like a sleeping bag and work gloves are not worth the investment, and that if my survival comes down to a single can of tuna, I’m sure that the US Embassy would already be on its way to pick me up. I do, however, buy a tube of pizza-flavored Pringles… because they’re friggin’ amazing.
In any event, upon arriving I find out that I’m the only one of the 120 who didn’t bring anything to sleep in. No worries, though. I decide that I can resort to begging as the stupid American, or at the very least sleep under a towel until someone takes pity on me. In a country with fully socialized health care, I figure that there’s no way they let me go blanketless.
I turn out to be 100% right. I ask one of the leaders of the trip (who speaks good but not perfect English) about acquiring some sleeping materials, and she assures me that “there are many nice people who will want to sleep with you.” Assuming that something got lost in translation, I head back to my room, and within five minutes someone shows up to offer me a blanket. Later on that night, some kind soul drops by to lend me their extra air mattress. How anyone managed to have an ‘extra’ air mattress is beyond me, but unfortunately I had fallen asleep about five minutes prior and did not receive their offer face-to-face. My friend and fellow volunteer, Jimi, takes it on my behalf and lightly taps my back in an “attempt” to wake me up. I do, ask him what the tap was for, and he flat out ignores me. Thinking I was mistaken, I fall back asleep. I awake the next morning to the sound of Jimi snoring, entrenched in a deep sleep on an air mattress that had magically appeared during the night.

Yup.

- I’m more prepared for the second day than the first. Having ruined my shorts, socks, and only pair of sneakers in the four inches of mud that was more accurately described as slushy brown superglue, I had trekked into town the night before to buy a pair of $7 rubber boots. Oh… and a supply of chocolate cookies called “Chikys” and Pringle knock-offs called “Kryzpos,” which came in a tube so large that it could fit most Civil War era cannonballs.
After lugging our equipment through the driving rain on the 20 minute walk to the building site, the rubber boots were already tearing through my skin and causing blisters on any portion of my lower legs that are not covered by socks. Which, of course, is every portion of my lower legs, because I had decided that morning that putting on socks would be a huge waste of time now that I was equipped with my incredible new waterproof boots. Having nature as my only resource to remedy this problem, I stuff my boots with some large palm leaves that I found growing next to our building site, and they act as the world’s cheapest, most ridiculous looking socks. Ranking myself somewhere between Lewis and Clark on the list of history’s greatest survivalists, my inflated ego and I are prepared for another long day in the rain.
I spent a few minutes pretending to understand instructions on how to level the posts, then sent myself off once again to dig rocks with the other gringos. I work at a furious pace, desperate to prove that my rock digging was just as important as building the actual house. All this determination manages to tire me out in about two hours, and suddenly I was searching for motivation to get through the other eight hours left in our day.
As my pace dwindled, a group of five children approached from down the street. The rain had let up a bit, allowing those sane enough to have stayed inside for the past couple of hours to come out. They were clearly from this same poor neighborhood: none of them were wearing shoes, their clothes were dirty and torn, and most of their attire was ill-fitting, clearly handed down from an older sibling but not yet grown into. The oldest one, who introduced himself as Chris, tried to start up a conversation with me but quickly realized that I couldn’t understand his breakneck pace. After a few mas despacio, por favor’s, he simplified his questions and I let him know what our group was doing, and why the tall, skinny American was stealing rocks from his road. The kids ranged in age from five to twelve, although each looked a good 2-3 years younger than their stated age due to the sad fact that the lack of food in these parts stunts the children’s growth.
Chris started our new, slower conversation by asking me if I was from the United States. I replied that I was. His first guess at my city of residence was Paris, but I had to break the news that I was from the slightly less exciting (but slightly more American) city of Boston. He looked puzzled, I told him it was cerca de New York, mas o menos, and he seemed satisfied. By this time, my fellow Gringa Jen made her way over. Jen had already taught in Costa Rica for a year, so she was able to carry on a more substantial conversation with the kids. She explained her job for the morning, which was carrying the dug up rocks back to the house site in a vegetable sack.
Without being asked, all five kids immediately started picking up the rocks I had dug up and placed them in the bag. They continued to do this, run after run, sometimes hovering over my shovel to fight for the right to pick up the next rock. My pace picked up, half strengthened by their enthusiasm for such a tedious task, the other half out of fear of embarrassment of being the white dude who can barely speak and can’t keep up with a bunch of kids. Before long, we’d stockpiled enough rocks to last the morning. I broke open my stash of Chikys to share with our helpers for a job well done, feeling selfish that I ever intended to eat all of them in a neighborhood where food isn’t a given. They happily took the treats, then scampered off as the rain picked back up, assuring that the rest of our rock-hunting wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.

--
Up until the week in Batan, I had been living a relatively sheltered life in Orosi, which is mostly middle class and full of people that are used to Americans. It was while I was delivering walls and floors to the different sites on the back of a pickup truck that it finally hit me that I was in Costa Rica. As we crept along the pothole-filled roads trying to dodge tree branches and keep the hundreds of pounds of wood from falling over and crushing us, one of the leaders of the project, a girl named Luli, talked to me about the impact Un Techo Para Mi Pais has already had, and what its future goals were. They’ve built hundreds of houses in Costa Rica already (and thousands in surrounding Latin American countries), but a ton of work still needs to be done. Luckily, they seem to be gaining popularity, especially with the more educated and well off university students of San Jose. I’m glad I was able to make a contribution, however small, to their cause, even if it meant washing myself in an outdoor sink every night.

Three new houses built for the first family.

Opening ceremony for our first house.

Hasta luego.

Haiku Thursday

2009-02-19T16:10:00.002-06:00

Because hours of free time is a great excuse to bring this 'tradition' back...

I.
At 3:12, I wake
Rejoice! The roosters don’t crow!
Oh, wait… nevermind.

II.
J-Kwon on TV
Home isn’t far away, see?
Just five years ahead.

III.
Mosquito netting:
Like a princess bed, except
It stops bat attacks

IV.
Telenovelas -
I just don’t understand them;
All they do is cry.

Primer dia

2009-02-17T15:57:00.003-06:00

Feb 16^th – First day of school

Mi casa, 4:30

After a seven month stint out of the classroom and five weeks here in Costa Rica, the first day of school finally arrived this morning. In the US, the first day is a big event for both students and teachers: everyone wants to make a good first impression, so everyone is 100% ready to go. Thinking back to my first day at Cohasset, I had been in my classroom for two days prior to opening in order to get my room/introductory lessons ready, and an hour before the bell on the first day. As is always the case in the US, all of my students were present on the first day, and we jumped right into things. I had been told time and time again to expect the complete opposite of the US experience, and that’s pretty much what I got.

I got up relatively early, leaving time to shower, eat, and walk my 50 second commute to school. Oscar and I left together, and arrived at 6:50, ten minutes before the “start” of school. At 6:57, I realized that I had forgotten my dictionary at the house, and I was there and back by 6:59. As 7 came and went with no indication of anything starting, I walked over to my classroom to see how the cleaning/wall-putting-up was coming along. Good news: I had a wall. Bad news: desks in total disarray, and I’m pretty sure that some men were carrying sacks of potatoes out of my room. I immediately wrote off any chance of the room being ready for the day.

Once my director, Mario, gave up on trying to fix our speaker system for the opening ceremonies, we did a quick pledge of allegiance and national anthem, followed by what I soon find out is teacher introductions. I made sure to line up as far away from Mario as possible, just in case he decided it would be funny if he handed me the microphone. Always thinking.

After that, all the kids went off with their classroom teacher. And by “all,” I mean “the ones who remembered today was the first day and decided to show up.” Of the 190 or so kids that are supposed to be in my school, I’d say no more than 35 showed up. I ask Mario what I can do, and he said that I was free until a meeting at 10.

With my classroom being cleaned, I decided to haul all of my materials to a rancho de palma, which is basically a traditional thatch hut made of bamboo-like wood and dried palm leaves. (One is pictured in the post below as ‘my office’.) I decided to organize all of the materials left behind for me into categories, mostly because it’s the only thing I could think of. Before long, about a dozen students (who I’m pretty sure were supposed to be in their classroom… but at this point I’d stop trying to make sense of the day) were in the rancho with me, shouting out whatever English they know in an attempt to please “Tichar.” Two sixth grade boys, Andres and Miguel, struck up a conversation with me, and to my surprise I had no trouble talking with them for the entire hour and a half that I was organizing. Some third grade girls eventually joined the fun and passed me things to place into piles, regardless of whether the item had already been placed into one. All the kids were extraordinarily nice and accommodating, and I definitely felt more comfortable with my ability to communicate with them by the time we finished.

With over an hour to spare and nothing to do, I walked around the rest of the school looking for things to do and students to meet. I eventually find my way to the computer lab which, as I had been told, is pretty amazing by Costa Rican standards. After talking to a few boys playing Mario Kart 64 on the computer (they take great pride in showing me the other games they have… Cruisin’ USA! I will find a way to plan a culture lesson around these games…), the computer teacher showed me to a computer with internet access, correctly guessing that all Gringos want to check their e-mail at every possible second. So, two hours into my first day of teaching in an indigenous Costa Rican village on the top of the mountain, I am checking Facebook to see what’s going on in the exciting world of wall postings.

10 o’clock rolls around, the kids go home, and the staff sits down around an outdoor table for the meeting. Mario introduced me to the rest of the staff. Here’s an exact translation, no lie: “This is Daniel, the new English teacher. He is single and good looking.” No comment. We get a couple of letters that I’m able to follow along with, and I’m feeling pretty good about myself. Then, we get the meeting schedule: 26 items long, all of which will be addressed by Mario in monologue form. Sweet.

At this point, things get a bit hazy. I try to follow along, but it simply wasn’t going to happen at that speed. Then, I switched to my “at least look interested” mode, where I intently look at Mario, pretending to get everything he says. I do this for about 25-30 minutes, having no idea where we are on the list of 26 items. Mario pauses and checks off the first two items. Great.

The talking continues, but eventually we got some coffee. The talking continues some more, but eventually they brought us lunch. The only let up is when another Gringo, who seemed to be a tourist, walks up to our meeting, pulling the kindergarten teacher away to offer her some toys. As we listened in, we heard him struggle through the conversation. I spoke up for the only time during the meeting, saying that there’s at least one person in Boruca who speaks worse Spanish than me. My only joke of the day was a success, but it does nothing to lessen the dullness of the rest of the meeting.

Luckily for me, our school has a part time volunteer who’s half-Borucan/half-American, and she let me in on any important points I missed. Which turn out to be… well… not much. We talked for a good while after, and she’s a huge help in finding out the ins and outs of Boruca and its small-town quirks. I head home to get a second dose of lunch, then head back to school for two nondescript hours of classroom arrangement. The room that I once considered massive (by Costa Rican standards) is now packed to the brim with 30 desks, with barely any room for aisles let games that involve movement. A slight downer, but I was still planning on holding half of my class outside anyways.

Soaked in sweat and covered in dust, I head home to hang out with Nashaly and the family’s new tiny dog, Dooby. ‘Tiny’ as in, he fell asleep in my palm. The family’s other dog, Scooby (get it?!) is a bit jealous, but you’d be too considering Dooby's cuteness:

Nashaly and (sleeping) Dooby

Dooby wakes up right as I take the photo. Cuteness remains.

‘Tis all for now. Another 1,200 word post. I’m going to have a book by the end of the year. Hasta luego.

First few days in Boruca

2009-02-12T13:28:00.004-06:00

El Colegio en Boruca, 1:30PM

(Typed at la oficina de Tichar Dan, as pictured above.)

(After finishing this entry, I realized that it’s kinda… no… really long. Then again, I had a two hour block in my morning with nothing else to do, so I decided to write a little. Still working on the piece about my week in Bataan building houses; hopefully that’s up soon.)

It’s now my third day in Boruca, and things are going about 100X better than I thought they would. After catching the last bus up the mountain on Tuesday, I walked across the street to my house to find that nobody was home. Awesome. Considering that home security in Boruca is nothing more than a string looped around the doorknob and nailed to the wall, I decided to let myself in after spending a few silent, awkward minutes with an old man who was also awaiting the return of my family.

After a few minutes of cleaning my backpack outside from the dirty week in Bataan and dirtier bus ride up the mountain, Asdrubal, the oldest brother in the family, showed up and offered me coffee. Asdrubal is an English teacher in another town, so I got to practice my Spanish with a sympathetic ear, as well as ask more specific questions that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to pull off in Spanish. The rest of the family eventually returned home… turns out that Oscar, the father, had simply forgotten that I had called and said I’d be on the last bus. It happens. The youngest daughter, Nashaly (4 years old), and Asdrubal’s son, Dillon (3), immediately rejoiced at my arrival by shouting “TICHAR!,” the named bestowed on whatever tall white guy that happens to be living in the town, since the white guy is always the English teacher. Nashaly and Dillon have become my best friends here over the first few days. I ask them how to say different words in Spanish, and they happily oblige while laughing at my Gringo pronunciation.

Wednesday, my first full day, was an exercise in filling time. After waking up at 8:30 and learning that my school director, Mario, was out of town until 3, I had a ton of time to fill with limited resources. My schedule, with no time noted because I’ve learned that specific times don’t mean much here:

- Eat breakfast. Gallo pinto, eggs, and coffee. Delicious. Nashaly laughs in my face for a good minute when she pounds her entire cup of coffee in the time it takes me to drink half of mine. Four year olds chugging coffee… nice.

- Shower. Possibly the biggest news of the year: AGUA CALIENTE! Since my last visit, my family installed an electric showerhead that allows me to take hot showers. It was my first hot shower in a week and a half, and I don’t think I’ve been so excited about something since the Sox won the World Series. Also, there were no big spiders in the shower like last time. That was a plus.

- Read. A lot. One of the things that I’m excited about this year is all the reading I’ll have time to do. With my last five years filled with college, teaching, and having friends that speak my language, I haven’t had a ton of time to read. I’ve been able to finish two books since arriving in Costa Rica – David Sedaris’ “Me Talk Pretty One Day” and Dennis Lehane’s “Darkness, Take My Hand.” Both are recommended, and both were comforting in certain ways: “Me Talk Pretty…” was largely comprised of embarrassing stories from when he was learning a new language, and “Darkness…” was set in Boston, including a chase scene over the Fore River Bridge that I crossed every morning to get to Cohasset. I’m now about halfway through “Into the Wild,” with another three books on deck.

- Watch the news. Basically, there were only two stories on the news today: every possible angle of Wednesday night’s soccer game between Costa Rica and Honduras, and Steven Segal’s visit to the country/meeting with Oscar Arias, Costa Rica’s president. Yes, you read that right. Not only is Steven Segal a national news story down here, HE GOT TO MEET WITH THE FREAKING PRESIDENT. If he can get a meeting with the president, who can’t? Do they tell him ‘yes’ but turn down Jared the Subway Guy? If so, Jared would have a legitimate gripe.

- Clean. Upon discovering the top shelf of my room was full of dust and materials from the volunteer that was here in 2006, I decided to spend a good hour or two cleaning. Things I discovered: a snare drum, a belt (I needed an extra one), and a backpack in the shape of a frog. Score.

- Walk to my director’s house and talk. On the walk there, I wasn’t sure if I should be excited or be scared enough to run back down the mountain. Well, when he answered the door with no shirt, dripping wet, and a towel draped over his shoulders, my fears were alleviated. We talked for a few minutes, and he told me that I could go to the school at 8 in the morning the next day.

- Take a walk. A long walk. It being 3:45 and my entertainment options exhausted until the soccer game that night, I trek out with some water and my camera with no real idea of where anything is. I follow the river for a few minutes to get to the plaza (soccer field), and with nothing to see there, I continue on up the road as it climbs up the mountain. There wasn’t a whole lot up there besides great views of Boruca and surrounding farms. Like this:

And this (my house is right in front of the big, ugly white building to the right):

I found an offroad trail that I followed for a bit through jungley terrain, but decided to turn around when I realized that getting lost in the jungle on my first full day was a good way to pick up some nicknames. On the way back, I discovered that the colegio (high school) offers internet access for 300 colones (about 50 something cents) an hour. Another score.

- Eat dinner. Rice, beans, and chorizo. Mmm.

- Futbol! The town started to rumble a few minutes before kickoff, with the sound blasting from the pulperia (convenience store/meeting place) across the street. The first half was pretty uneventful, with the highlight being an extended conversation about the different pictures on the back of US quarters with Oscar. In the second half, though, Costa Rica scored two quick goals. After each, you could hear the town erupting, with people cheering, dogs barking, and fireworks being set off. (I initially thought that someone had been shot… but that wouldn’t have made much sense as a celebration.) The game ended as a huge 2-0 win for Costa Rica, and I’ve been told that they play the US next. I might be watching that one alone. Bed time.

This morning, I was operating on Tico Time and assumed that my director would be too. Tico Time is when the stated time (as in, “I’ll be there by 7”) is more of a suggestion than a promise. After being told yesterday that he would be at the school by 8am, I roll out of bed at 8:30, shower, eat breakfast, and eventually arrive at the school by 9:15ish. He, of course, has yet to arrive. Tico Time can either be the greatest thing in the world or the most frustrating, depending on when it’s used. Today, though, I’m all about it. Once he gets there, he shows me around the school and my classroom. The school is impressive by Costa Rican standards, and currently undergoing a full cleaning. My classroom is different than the one I had a picture of before. I’m now in the “main” part of the school, which means I have a slightly nicer classroom with electricity. The downside as of right now is that I don’t have a wall separating me from the third grade class. Things could be worse, I suppose. I was able to carry on a simple conversation with him for the entire 25 minutes that he was showing me around, and he seems like a nice guy. Took a quick peek through the materials left for me by the last volunteer, and found out that there’s a good chance that I might only teach Mondays through Thursdays. Three day weekend every week? This volunteering thing isn’t too bad…

It’s just about lunch now, so I’m off for my standard dish of rice, beans, and __________. Hope all continues to go well back home, and as always, thanks for the e-mails, messages, and comments.

Moving on

2009-01-30T22:54:00.004-06:00

Hotel Aranjuez, San Jose - 11PM
Quick update as I struggle to stay awake:
Orientation ended today, and we all loaded our bags onto the bus and left Orosi for the "real world." But since school doesn't start until the 16th (mas o menos... classes tend to fully start when everyone "feels" ready), we have a bit of extra time. I'm spending tonight in San Jose, and the dreamworld of cheap food that was Orosi is officially gone: three other volunteers and myself ordered two pizzas from Pizza Hut... for $40.
I'm heading to Boruca for tomorrow night. My family there doesn't quite know this yet, as I haven't called them. Nor do I know exactly how I'm getting there. I'm doing the trek with a few other volunteers for the sake of having people to talk with over the 6-7 hours, but getting up my mountain is going to be a bit of a crapshoot since I'm taking a different bus. At the very worst, I'll learn where the other, quicker road up my mountain is, and hopefully find a nice person to hitch a ride with. I'm hoping to meet my director and take a look at my classroom, as well as drop off the rest of my stuff. After a night in Boruca, about 8 of us are heading to the beaches of Manuel Antonio for 36 hours. Hopefully the sun stays out this weekend; our weekend trip to Cahuita last week had all of two hours of sun.
After heading back to San Jose, most of us will be heading to the province of Limon for a week to build houses for the poor. Pretty much a Habitat For Humanity type deal, and since we'll likely be the only gringos in our group of 60, it should be a chance to brush up on my Spanish.
So I'll likely be away from the computer for at least the next week, and potentially more depending on when I head back to Boruca.
Oh, and just because posts without pictures are boring:
Staring match w/bird. Bird won.
On the trip back from Cahuita, the door to our bus fell off, almost smacking me in the face as I was gazing out on the scenery. This seemed like old hat to our bus driver, who was able to snap the thing back on and get us going within a few minutes. Hooray for sketchy travel!

Once again, thanks for all the messages and e-mails. Keep 'em coming. Until next time...

All the best,
DP

Random bits and pics

2009-01-23T17:20:00.004-06:00

A few short thoughts and three new pictures from the last couple of weeks:

- Translation from my Spanish workbook from the “por vs. para” section: “I exchanged my dog for a bicycle.” Hmmm.
- Last week I saw a man riding a horse while talking on a cell phone.
- I’ve seen a number of commercials for the TV show of an animated character that I’ve decided to call “Thomas the Badass Tank.”He’s basically Thomas, but he’s older, speaks Spanish, and looks like he’d break a chair over your head if you looked at him the wrong way. I can’t wait to catch his show.
- On the trip back from Boruca, I paid a man 300 colones (53 cents) and half of my Coke to walk me to a bus stop that I couldn’t find. I thought I got a pretty good deal… I saved 1,200 colones by not taking the taxi and got to find out how to walk to a stop that I’d need to use in the future. Oh, and the stop was three blocks up on the same street.
- All of the volunteers took Latin dance lessons a couple of nights ago. I was awful to the point that students from the summer school we’re running were taking pictures of me. On the bright side, I decided that the “Cotton-Eyed Joe” dance goes well to just about any type of Latin dance, and that I’m better at it than all six million residents of Costa Rica.
- In the states, I got about 5-6 hours of sleep a night, never ate breakfast, and didn’t drink coffee in the morning. Here, I get 10-12 hours of sleep a night, eat breakfast, and drink 3 cups of coffee before lunch. By 11am, I’m usually punching walls just to expend extra energy.
-There’s a reggaeton artist here named Nick-Y. The “Y,” of course, is pronounced like the Spanish word for “and” (i.e., arroz y frijoles). I spend at least twenty minutes a day thinking about how much this bothers me.
- One of the “cultural quirks” that I had been told about (and originally laughed at) was that Ticos never walk around barefoot – even inside – for fear of getting sick. Last night, I was doing some Spanish homework in my bed and needed to get a book out of my backpack. I got up, took a step towards it, realized that I was barefoot, stopped to put on my sandals, took the extra step that it took to get to my backpack, made the two-step journey back to my bed, and took my sandals off. The language part might take a while, but my cultural assimilation has started.
- The kids learned sooo much better when we provided them with words to make fun of people with/their opposites. Recreo usually turned into a verbal war with my sixth graders: "Teacher, you are weak!" "You are weaker!" "No, I am strong!"
- At the post-graduation fiesta, I was making it rain with candy as the kids scattered about and fought each other for it. Easily a top-5 moment in my life.

Pictures:

My host mother Luz and I. Her favorite phrase is "Que frio!" and I would give up a year of my life to learn how to make empanadas like her.

My group of teachers switched to 6th grade halfway through the week. Only six students, but they were a good group. Lisandro (far left) was a quick kid. While playing a game of charades to demonstrate adjectives, he discreetly gave the middle finger to the rest of the class to demonstrate "bad" without my fellow volunteer (who was teaching at the time) noticing. I was laughing too hard to say anything... and I thought that it was a pretty good demonstration anyways.
Two students and I at the post-graduation fiesta. Marlon (left) was in my third grade class and constantly by my side, usually asking me where my soccer ball was and if I would be on his team. After he realized that I didn't understand 90% of what he says (he speaks about 1000 words a minute), he decided that he'd name himself my official tape-tearer for when I was preparing for class.

Long-distance rooster calls

2009-01-21T17:21:00.002-06:00

It’s been a busy week and a half, but I finally have a few hours off to update this thing on different happenings.
Spanish classes have been ongoing – three hours a day, Monday to Friday. The exact same thing that happened to me in high school is happening now: I started off really well, but hit a brick wall as more and more information was presented. Not only can I not see to remember any of the new information, but it seems to force out the stuff I was previously good at. On the bright side, I’ve learned enough to navigate through everyday tasks like riding the bus and buying things at stores. Also, Ticos (residents of Costa Rica) are generally helpful, and have been pretty willing to take the time to listened to my staggered Spanish and (in two cases) walk me directly to the place that I’m trying to find. My teacher, Margoth, is great, and I’ve spent a good amount of class time trying to convince her that my fellow classmates are petty criminals and liars. That seems to be the one topic of conversation that I’m proficient at.
I visited my “real” site, Boruca, for the first time over this past weekend. If I had to describe the trip to Boruca in a word, it’d be “long.” If I was allowed a couple of more words, I’d probably say “really friggin’ long.” Here’s the itinerary: 40 minute bus from Orosi to Cartago. Walk to another bus station. Take a 30 minute bus from Cartago to San Jose. Walk to another bus station. Take a 4.5 hour bus from San Jose to a random gas station outside of Buenos Aires. Take a pirate taxi from outside of Buenos Aires to the center of the town. Wait for 2-3 hours, depending on when the bus decides it wants to show up. Get on a dilapidated yellow school bus and take a 1.5 hour trip up a mountain on a dirt road. Also, there’s a pretty good chance that I’m standing for most/all of the bus trips as road safety is not a priority in Costa Rica. (For example, I saw a two year old at the wheel of a car the other day, steering the car as his father (who’s lap he was seated on) took the pedals.)
Boruca itself is actually pretty large considering it’s isolated position at the top of a mountain. There’s a couple of restaurants, a store or two, a soccer field, and a cultural museum. I also saw a couple of Americans wandering around looking to buy some indigenous artwork. I only really got to spend a good amount of time with my host mom, Yaneth. She was extremely accommodating with my Spanish, and her living room seems to be the social Mecca of Boruca. I didn’t get to see the inside of my school (the director was on vacation), but from the outside it looked quite nice.
While I’m talking about Boruca, I’d like to change my previous comment about loving roosters. I like roosters in small amounts, and during the day. When I’m trying to sleep at night and 20 of them are having cross-town conversations with each other… not so much.
After the long trip back, we started a one-week summer school English program for the local kids. I’m teaching 3rd grade with two other volunteers. They’ve done a great job of taking in all of the new information. Three hours of voluntary school a day is a lot, but we fill it with games, songs, and other activities that I couldn’t have pulled off with my 7th graders. (However… for those former students who are reading, you’d be happy to know that I’ve introduced FishBall to a new country. They’re big fans, even though none of them could hit anything higher than the one-point shot.) Recreo (recess) is insane, and basically amounts to 70 kids chasing after a soccer ball and running over anything that gets in their way.
That’s the major news. There’s various nighttime activities that all the volunteers take part in. Last night was indoor soccer, tonight is dance lessons. My host mother here in Orosi is one of the nicest people on Earth, but she’s a “mother” in the classic sense – I’m the only volunteer with a curfew, and a 10pm one at that. Even though I didn’t have to be in that early in middle school, I still find it pretty funny, plus I’m usually sleepwalking by 8:30 anyways. That ends the “big news” update, and I’m gonna try to squeeze in some random thoughts before they boot us out of the Spanish school/free wireless locations. Thanks for all the e-mails/comments/Facebook messages… keep them up!

All the best,
Dan

A few photos...

2009-01-11T15:20:00.008-06:00

We don´t have much in the way of training on the weekends, so we´ve used our free time to explore, eat, sample the night life, catch up on the NFL playoffs, and do nerdy things like update blogs. Here´s a few photos from the first few days in Orosi. I´ll post more at some point, but they´re taking forever to upload because I sized them too big.

Team Ganamos (Jonathan and I) after winning the 3-legged race. I´m showing off my trophy (aka a pen), because I didn´t really win too many of them when I was younger.

Un gallo. They greet me every morning when I walk to our meetings. And by ¨greet,¨ I mean completely ignore me as I tell them that they´re my friends in Spanish. Me encanta gallos.

We took a guided hike up into the mountains with a local legend named Nano. I´ll be adding more about him later, but basically he lives the life that we all wish we could: he lives in the mountains in what amounts to a two-story fort that you would have killed to have when you were ten years old. He grows coffee and gives tours of his mountain farm for about $1.70 per person. Here, he´s bathing in his waterfall for our amusement. (He also speaks the clearest Spanish I´ve come across yet. He spoke for about 4 hours straight and I didn´t miss a thing.)

The ¨inside¨ of Nano´s house, which really isn´t inside at all due to the lack of real walls or ceilings.

Nano swings from his vine swing. Other people got a photo of me doing it/hanging on for dear life.

Looking out on Orosi over the terraced coffee fields. The plaza is the green field in the middle, directly to the left is the oldest operating church in Costa Rica (over 300 years old).

Bonding over mudslides

2009-01-10T13:30:00.004-06:00

It´s been about three days since I arrived here in Costa Rica, and it´s been pretty hectic. Getting here was quite the adventure. My flight to Miami was cancelled, my rescheduled flight to Washington DC sat on the runway for an hour, and my flight from Washington to Miami landed and proceeded to sit at the gate as my Costa Rican flight´s departure time came and went. Oh, and they lost my bags. After running through the terminal to catch my slightly delayed flight (kinda like that scene in Home Alone, only without the overly-dramatic music to bring a sense of levity to the situation), I caught the flight with about two minutes to spare. The group spent the first night in a hostel, then set out the next morning to go to the immigration office to fill out the first in a supposedly endless series of forms. Getting fingerprinted was fun, and considering that the office was surrounded by policemen, I was waiting for someone to be whisked out the back door, never to be seen again.
After some lunch, we headed to a hospital to meet out doctors. He gave his talk in a monotone voice, making sure to slip in marginally funny sarcastic comments... needless to say I´m a big fan. During the talk, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake struck San Jose, shaking the building and causing me to yell out that someone save the leftover sandwiches. Apparently, ticos either don´t understand much English, don´t appreciate jokes during natural disasters, or both. Everyone ended up being OK... the earthquake hit harder outside of San Jose, and unfortunately four people died in mudslides.
After that excitement, we headed onto the bus to move to Orosi, a small town in a valley about an hour and a half from San Jose. After a quick meeting talking about how we´ll definitely be embarrasing ourselves with our language gaffes, we met our host families. My family is quite small by Costa Rican standardsÑ a mother and two songs, ages 18 and 20. They´re quite accomodating, especially when it comes to the fact that I only understand about 30% of what they say, and only respond in choppy sentences solely in the present tense. We ate some dinner (rice, beans, and chicken), and the son and I sat down and went through his bootleg DVD collection. After watching some reggaeton music videos set to cut-up clips from Shrek, SNL, and the like, the whole family sat down to watch news coverage of the earthquake. Despite the morbidity of the situation, it was actually a good way of bonding, as I peppered them with questions about how to say words like ¨landslide¨ in Spanish. Good, clean, family fun.
Today, we hosted some family games on the town´s plaza. I paired up with a kid named Jonathan, who was about ten, and we proceeded to completely dominate the day. Eventually, we dubbed ourselves Equipo Ganamos, and taunted the other teams with the multiple boligrafos that we had won with each contest. (So in case you were wondering... yes, despite the change in country, I´m still a huge jerk.) Some other volunteers and I headed out to lunch after, and I got a giant plate rice, beans, chicken, and other various veggies for all of $4. If the same resaurant was in Braintree, there´s a good chance that I´d be there 3-4 times a day.
Well, we´re done for the day, so I´m off to swim and eventually study some Spanish. I´ll try to upload some pictures soon. As always, e-mails and comments are much appreciated. Talk to everyone soon!

Dan

Last update before leaving

2009-01-06T00:03:00.019-06:00

It's now past 2:00 in the morning, it looks like a bomb went off in my room, and I'm currently more concerned with finding random songs that I couldn't live without to put on my iPod (and by that, I mean early-90's rap songs that I plan on using as dance party songs with my students... Snow's 'Informer" is going to take the Costa Rican charts by storm!) than doing any actual packing. The fact that I'm limited to two or three bags is making things a bit easier; when it comes time to actually start shoving my life into some duffel bags, I know that anything non-essential can't make the cut. That means you, Sigmund A . Lavine's 1980 classic "Wonders of Goats" - a Christmas gift from my grandmother that I've held on to for over twenty years even though I never particularly liked goats to begin with. (I think it's the picture of the goat on the front cover... its facial expression conveys anything but wonder. Probably closer to boredom, or at least acceptance of a mediocre existence.)
As it's past midnight, I'm officially leaving tomorrow. I'll be flying to Miami on Wednesday morning, meeting up with the rest of the volunteers, then heading to a town called Orosi (outside of the capital of San Jose) to start training. I'm sure things will be beyond busy during the first week or two, so this could be the last update for a bit.
First off, I'll share some quick info on my site for the year. I'll go into more detail once I get there, but here's what I've learned from the volunteer that was there last year, Kevin. All credit to him, especially for the pictures. I'll be living in Boruca, a town of about 700 in the southwestern portion of Costa Rica. It's in the mountains and a bit isolated, but compared to other volunteer sites (like my friend Becca's from last year) it's relatively large. The Borucans are an indigenous people of Costa Rica, meaning that they were there before the Spaniards arrived in the 1500's. They take great pride in the fact that they were one of the few tribes not conquered by the Spaniards. This puts an interesting spin on things, as I'll get to experience both Costa Rican culture (which they still are very much a part of) as well as their unique tribal heritage. I'll save the rest for later, but for now, here are some pictures of my town and school:

Here's a picture of my host family's house, my home for the year. Pretty large by local standards; there's no hot water, but my years at camp have more than prepared me.

Exterior and interior shots of my classroom. It's not quite Cohasset, but I've been told that Boruca's school is better funded than the average Costa Rican school because of their indigenous status. We have a small computer lab with internet access, which isn't something most schools down there have. Happy days.
And finally, what's a picture tour without a little scenery? Here's a 65 foot waterfall that's a short walk from my village. Notice the lack of townies jumping off of it? That means we're not in Braintree.

Donations Update!

As promised, I want to thank those who have helped make this year possible by donating to the cause. These are the names of the people that have either given me money directly or sent an e-card through Universal Giving. If you sent a check or didn't send an e-card, I probably won't find out about your donation until after I leave. (Don't worry, you'll still get your shout-out then.) In no particular order:

Diane (Scout) and Andrew Osborne
Morven Buchanan
Deborah and Frank Ursino
Michelle, Tori, and Allie Ibrahim
John Coyne
Kathy Marquis
The Schaub Family (all 437 of them)
Sherry and Michael DeHay
Jason McCabe
Bill Fish
Kevin Valorz
Patti Perkins
Bob Blaney
Michael Schaub

If you happen to see these people around, give them a pat on the back and remind them how awesome they are.

..And a special mention for:

Sue Beatrice

Sue is a complete stranger who was kind enough to donate a digital camera so I can share pictures and videos with you. The camera is beyond amazing (even if I'm a poor photographer), and I'm looking forward to posting images of my town, students, and poisonous creatures that I wake up to in the morning. Oh, and because I'm sure you all know how much I love random cultural trivia, Sue was the person who made the Travelocity garden gnome!

Once again, thanks to everyone who has donated so far. If you still want to donate, you still have about a week or so to donate directly to WorldTeach. The step-by-step instructions to do that are in my previous post. After that, my 'account' at WorldTeach closes, but you can still send donations directly to my mother, who'll be handling my US financials and be able to put it into an account that I can access in Costa Rica. And don't worry, I'll be more than happy to let you know what the money goes towards, and it'll all go to the students/school.

Este es todo para ahora. Not sure when I'll get to update this next, but I'm sure it'll be with something so exciting that you'll forget that I ever made a pun about the rapper Snow. (OK... go back and find it... see! Didn't catch that the first time, did you?)

All the best,
Dan

Fundraising!

2008-11-22T01:33:00.013-06:00

(Just so you don't think I'm starting right off by asking for money, be sure to scroll down and read my introduction in the first post. Then feel free to come back and read this one.)

OK, here's the deal. I've never asked you for anything. I probably haven't told you what my birthday is because I feel as though the day is just unwarranted attention for something that I had little to do with. My relatives hate Christmas shopping for me because my list usually "nothing." So I feel as though I've earned this one opportunity to ask for your help. Since the WorldTeach program is a volunteer one, I won't be making any money over the next year. I'm OK with that, except that there are a ton of expenses that go in to living in a foreign country for a year. My host family needs to get paid to house and feed me for the year. I need to pay for my training. I need to be insured, just in case I eat a sketchy tamale. International flights are sorta expensive.
Because of all this, I'm asking you to make a donation in my name to WorldTeach. I have a $5000 program fee to cover all the costs of living and volunteering in Costa Rica for the year, and I'm hoping that some of you can help me out with it.

There's two ways you can donate:
1. Give online in my name through this link at Universal Giving. This will go directly to WorldTeach, and you can print out the confirmation page to use as a receipt for a tax deduction. Be sure to write in "Daniel Perkins - Costa Rica 2009" in the "Who are you giving on behalf of?" box.

2. If you don't want to go the online route, you can send a check with the memo line of "Daniel Perkins - Costa Rica 2009" directly to WorldTeach at:
WorldTeach
c/o Center for International Development
Harvard University
79 John F. Kennedy St. Box 122
Cambridge, MA 02138

If you want a receipt for your check in order to make it tax-deductible, please be sure to include a quick note and your return address.

Either way you donate, please be sure to include "Daniel Perkins - Costa Rica 2009" as the person to donate on behalf of/in the memo line of your check. Otherwise, it will go to their general fund and not to me. Which, I mean, isn't a bad thing, but my guess is that you'll sleep a lot better at night knowing that you're generous donation is helping me directly.
So please... as the holiday season approaches, think about donating to this worthy cause. Instead of getting someone another gift they don't need, tell them you made a donation in their honor. Thinking about getting me a birthday or Christmas gift? Donate instead. If you donate now, I'll sing your praises and make you famous all over this blog. If you don't, well, I'll probably still call you for a donation anyways, and things will probably get pretty awkward between us. I'm good at that sort of thing. And plus, are you really gonna say no to these kids...

... cause you'd be a pretty terrible person if you did. Just saying.

Hola! (OK... that was a lame intro.)

2008-11-22T01:08:00.008-06:00

So I realize that starting this blog at this moment in time makes me a bit of a liar (as I’m not actually in Costa Rica yet), but chances are that you’ve gotten over more egregious lies before. The main point of this blog will be to keep people informed about my upcoming year in Costa Rica. Hopefully, I can do it in a way that’s both educational and entertaining, but chances are that I’ll accomplish neither of those and just bring shame upon my family name. It’s OK, I’m used to it.

Seeing how I’m not actually there yet, how this is going to work is a bit of an unknown. I don’t find out where I’ll be living until a few weeks before I leave, and I probably won’t find out how “connected” I’ll be until I actually arrive to my actually host family’s house in early-ish February. I could have relatively easy internet access and be able to update this thing whenever I feel like, I could have to travel to the nearest city and update it at an internet café every week or so, or I could be completely isolated and only see a computer once every month or two. Then again, if the only thing you have to look forward to in life is me updating this blog, you might need to find a new hobby. (The preceding statement does not apply to my mother, Patti Perkins, who will undoubtedly account for 94.3% of this blog’s hits and 100% of the “why are you so ungrateful, all I want is one call” messages I receive.) My other problem has to do with audience… this is going to be read by family, friends, former students, co-workers, and maybe a stalker or two, so I have to keep this at least slightly appropriate and professional. Do not despair… I’m sure the majority of the content here will wind up being stories of me making a fool of myself, but the goal is to keep things kosher, both in my posts and your comments.

To get started, here are a few (not so) Frequently Asked Questions about what I’ll be doing for the next year. Feel free to ask questions I didn’t think of.

(Note: To make this part more entertaining, imagine each question being asked by a worried 82 year-old grandmother from Queens. Think Edith Bunker, only not as dead.)

What exactly are you doing in Costa Rica?

GOOD QUESTION! In early January, I’ll be moving down to Costa Rica to be a volunteer English teacher for a year.

You’re moving to Africa?! But it’s so dangerous there!

In one form or another, the "Africa" question seems to be the one I get asked the most. Costa Rica is not in Africa. It’s in Central America. Map time!

-------------------------------------------------- Right here. --------------

And it’s one of the more peaceful/safe countries in the world. In fact, it doesn’t even have a proper military, only a few branches of national security forces that patrol domestic issues like border patrol and emergencies. Just think of it as the Lichtenstein of Central America... there, that should clear any confusion up.

Don’t they speak Spanish there? You got a ‘C’ in Spanish in high school.

They do speak Spanish. And I was a sub-par Spanish student in high school. BUT: I’ll be teaching English in English to my students there, and I’ve been reviewing my Spanish in preparation. Plus, I got an ‘A’ when I took Spanish in college. So take that, you worthless nonbeliever. The language barrier is going to be an issue to start, but I feel as though I know enough of the vocabulary/grammar… I just need to adjust to the speed at which they speak it. I’m fully prepared to go through a month or so of embarrassment in order to adjust.

Why Costa Rica?

Well, I’ve always wanted to devote a bit of my time to volunteering. I thought about doing it out of high school, but one’s options for philanthropy without a college diploma are restricted to digging ditches and licking envelopes. Five years later, I’ve decided on teaching as a profession, and the people at WorldTeach happen to specialize in volunteer teaching programs. WorldTeach offers a number of year-long programs, but Costa Rica was the best match as far as who I’d be working with (kids, as opposed to adults), what I’d be teaching (English, a language that I’m relatively familiar with, even if I sometimes degrade it by telling agonizingly long, awkward, and unfunny stories), and culture I’d be living in (mostly food-oriented issues here– I don’t like Asian cuisine, and there have been a number of 3-4 week spans where I only eat rice, beans, and flour tortillas.) I had originally applied to the program in 2007, but ended up taking my job at Cohasset Middle School instead. Meanwhile, my good friend Becca had taken a WorldTeach position in Costa Rica. I was lucky enough to visit her during my April vacation and keep in touch with her throughout the year, and decided that Costa Rica was still a place that I wanted to volunteer at. Considering that I’m teaching them English, and a number of my former students are learning Spanish, I feel as though it’s a good opportunity for a little bit of cultural exchange. At the very least, both sides will learn how to make fun of me in two different languages. "Senor Perkins tiene una barbilla muy grande."

Where will you be teaching?

I’ll be placed at a public school, probably in a more rural area of the country. (Sorry, I probably won't be living in a giant sand castle on one of their tropical beaches. You can cancel those travel plans now.) Costa Rica has mandatory public school through 6^th grade, and English is part of their national curriculum. Students can continue with their education after the 6^th grade (about 40% do), but I’ll be in a 1^st-6^th school.

Where will you be living?

I’ll live with a host family in the village that I teach in. The host families sign up to have a volunteer live with them, and are compensated by WorldTeach to provide me with food and shelter. I don’t know who I’ll be living with yet, but I do know that I’m guaranteed my own room. This is a good thing, because I doubt the average Costa Rican family likes listening to Lil’ Wayne mixtapes at 2am.

When is this post going to end? You’ve been talking for way too long.

Good point. I’ll end it here. If there’s any other pertinent questions, feel free to post them in a comment or e-mail them to me.